The Ariel Helwani Show - 2026 MMA Prediction Show: Will Ilia Topuria fight? Do Jon Jones and Conor McGregor return?

Episode Date: January 7, 2026

Ariel Helwani is joined by The Boys in the Back and Petesy Carroll to review their predictions from last year, then forecast the MMA landscape for 2026.After giving their Must-See Fights (10:53), Breakout Fighters (45:39), Stories To Watch (58:58), and Male and Female Fighters (1:21:27), the crew predicts how many new UFC champions will be crowned (1:33:50), play a round of True or False (1:41:16), and each make one bold prediction (1:58:49).The show closes with a debate about the Michael Morales record controversy (2:16:21), Super Chats (2:53:43), and some other news and notes (3:05:02).

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Eriya-Hawaii show. Back in your life on this Wednesday, January 7th, and 26, hello again, everyone. I'm wondering when I'm going to screw that up. At some point, I will say 25. I haven't yet. Third show in a row, I've nailed it. At some point, probably next week, I'm going to screw it up.

It's been a great week. Great return week for us. Hwani Noz Awards on Monday. Aronade Awards yesterday plus OTN, supersized OTHN. I think we went to like 34 questions or something like that. Golly, was I tired afterwards. And today, probably, dare I say probably. my most anticipated show of this awards week

because it's not your typical awards it's finally time to turn the page everyone asks me okay like when is it you know everyone thinks that I'm like Mr. Larry David around here so they always come to the neurotic Jew and say when is the cutoff when is the cutoff for when you could say happy new year

you know when the cutoff is when we say goodbye to boxing in 2025 and MMMA in 2025 and now we turn the page to 2026 because we are here now in the year 2006, the year of our Lord. And we will look ahead in particular to the year to come in MMA. Now, I want to give you a bit of a history lesson here. This is a very fun show. This is one of my favorite shows of the year. I want to give you a history lesson way back in the day when

it was just New York Rick. Frank was in his father's nutsack. G.C. was in the third grade. Andy was God knows where. Jordan was God knows where. He was in an edit booth in at ESPN, and Andy was working at Disney World, for God's sakes, or something like that. And it was just Rick and I, you know, walking up the hill, barefoot, minus 30, and we would do our award show, wouldn't get dressed up, wouldn't make a big to-do. And at the very end of the award show, we'd make some predictions. That's what it was. Just a couple.

Like, who's going to be the male fighter of the year? Who's going to be the female fighter of the year? That sort of thing. And, you know, it was quick. then we moved along to the ringer. When we split up the ringer slash MMA hour, we did that whole thing. I said, all right, MMA hour is going to get the awards, but the ringer show, myself, Chuck and Pizzi, we'll do our predictions. When we came to Uncrown, when we started Uncrown, when we started this whole deal with Yahoo last year, it was the first time that I kind of put it all under one roof.

And so we had the prediction show at the very end. we pre-taped it while we were on vacation. We played it for all of you, but it was still like, I don't know, it was like the 29th or the 30th or something like that. And then we came back with the award show to look back at the year that was, which was 2024. This year, first time, award show Monday, Tuesday boxing show, and then live prediction show. And what's fun about this year and hopefully many more years to come, now we can look back and say, okay, last year we predicted that this was going to happen, and this is what actually happened. In fact, in fact, as I've been doing this, as I said, for several years, ringer all that stuff, MMR. I would like

to not, like, I always said to myself, like, okay, I'm not going to listen to last year's predictions. I'll come in fresh. This year, I actually switched it up. This year, on my way to the show today, so it could be as fresh as possible in my mind, I listened to last year's show. And I got to tell you, I had a blast doing so because it's very fun listening to us, make predictions, argue, all that stuff and more. And there was a lot of arguing, by the way. It's very fun to listen to that, knowing how the year played out. So, by the way, I highly recommend it. Even after today's show, it's very fun to see.

It's fun to see who nailed certain predictions. I mean, and it's fun to see who got them completely wrong. And trust me, I got them wrong. I mean, not as much as others, but there were some, you know, some, there's some bullseyes and there's some. you know, there's some swings and misses, as they say in the business. So it was a lot of fun. I'm fresh. I'm revved and ready to go.

I'm fired up right now. And I'm kind of, if you're wondering, like, I'm kind of buying some time because here we are big prediction show. We're coming out of the gate and I'm getting a slew of messages that Petey has left. And so I'm wondering, like, why, like, we started the show, what could you have possibly done at 102 Eastern 602 that you couldn't have done at, say, 58, 57, where are you going? as I'm, as the plane is taking off, you're taking off your seatbelt

and saying, oh, one second, I have to go check the overhead. What exactly are you doing at 02? Well, here's the thing. It's happened two days of the row. Everything's going great. Yeah. A bit of banter with the woke front desk, which I just joined today as well. I heard, I heard. I heard. I have a political

identity now, guys, and my pronouns are he, him, by the way. And what happened was everything's going great. And then I'm like, Pizzi, we're going to put you through. Thumbs up. And as soon as I go thumbs up, you just start going to crack. So then we have to go back out. We come back. But look at me now. Okay. Okay. I wasn't sure about that.

Whoa. I wasn't sure. About that imitation. I wasn't sure about that. I guess you were trying to say like through your internet. I was all child. Okay. I thought you were imitating the way in which I started the show. I mean, that would be. Wait, but let's not move on from Pizzi's flexibility there. Let me see that again, Pizzi. This whole thing, don't worry about. Oh, my Lord. Look at the flexibility. Look at that bandwidth from the internet. That's what I'm saying. That's what I was trying to demonstrate there.

Irish Reefs. Oh, no, you did it. You did it great. You did it very well, please. Yeah, no, you look fantastic there. Very nimble, very flexible? Limber? All of those things.

All those things. I'm an athlete. Guys, I have to say, it's really fun because I just listened to us argue about the year that was, and now here I am coming in fresh. And can I just say off the bat? And by the way, for the people out there that want your news and notes, we'll get to all the other stuff that's happened since we last spoke. Some interesting things, including

Michael Morales's record, he gets a loss, he gets a loss back, he gets a win, he's undefeated, he's not undefeated, it's a whole big mesh you guys, we'll get to all that back into the show, have no fear. But guys, we did this prediction show last year, and for the record,

did anyone go back and listen to last year's show? Nope, no. Easy? Who, me? No, of course not, no, of course. Sounds like, all right, I mean, by the way, intentionally so.

No, no, no, don't, don't try to try to try to. By the way, that's what a host says when an author comes into his show he goes, you know, I intentionally didn't want to read your book because I wanted to go for it. No, I think you're too lazy to read the author. No, no, no, no, no, no, hold on, hold You explained why in past years you did

not go back to it. And now because one year you finally went back to it, you're acting all sanctimonious. It's been a revelation. F-dag. You know what? At once you did the subtle dig of the Rick was like, I purposely didn't go back and you like, well, I did and I can tell you it's better this one. You know what? You know what? You guys

are you're disingenuous I'm sure I missed a lot I'm sure I missed a lot I lived it I lived it I was there you know what you know what you missed this because right out of the gate we were arguing up the wazoo right out of the gate

we were arguing so much on this show I was actually listening to it be like holy shit like if someone didn't know us they would actually think that we might actually secretly all hate each other I hope it happens again this but isn't the best sign of this is that none of us actually cared about it

like that's the best part It happens every show I don't even remember arguing I can't lie I thought we were all like pretty agree I'll refresh your memory So this is how it's going to work out Of course only on why

That's what a host does This is how this is going to work This is how it's going to work All tee up a topic And this is really focused on MMA but I guess if you want to go off the board go ahead But everything was MMA last

There was some teasing of Ben Eubank nonsense But for the most part It was all MMA I'll tee up the top topic. I'll tell you what we said last year. We'll talk about, you know, how things went, who got it right, who got it wrong, and then we'll look ahead to 2026. Does that make sense to everyone? That's great. That's great. I love that. All right. So we will, thank you, Pizzi.

So we will start with a very fun one, which is, oh, thank you, Frank. Thank you. I appreciate that. I actually thought we were going to come in with this earlier and I forgot. You were going to go for it. Yes. Yes. What your swing. This is like 19, 20, The war is over. You're kissing a girl in Times Square. You know those famous? That's what it is.

World War I is done. Hopefully we don't have one of those again. Hitler is dead. No, that's the next one. Kissing a boy or girl. A boy or girl. I'm on the walkroom bench. He have, yes, that's right.

Pitsy, don't make this your whole personality now. Non-binary as well. We need to give an odd to the amic. You know, I'm just saying, I'm just saying. For those that don't know, there is a group chat. called the woke front bench that consists of the wokenest members of the team

Andy Jordan and Frank and they have this like secret society but wait wait and I've been wondering about it and all of a sudden literally two minutes before the show I think by mistake Frank reveals to me

that PT has been added what I want to know is what do you do to get added to the woke front bench I'd like to know too first of all I'm overstimulated by this conversation so I want to move past it

I don't want to speak about it I just wanted a nod to, it doesn't have to just be a girl. There's many sexualities. It's more of a nectrum. Frank insinuated that you said something that kind of was like the tip of the cap, like the nod, like you're one of us come in, like a sort of password. This doesn't feel like a safe space. What gives you that impression, Pizzi?

I don't want to get into it right now, but I can't look at the top right hand of the screen. I'll tell you that much. It's disgusting. You said basically, he asked you, you know, what kind of soup you said New England Clam Chowder, the red of the white you know that? Do you know what this is? Anyone? Anyone get there? I don't know this. I don't know this. I don't know this. I don't know.

Ace Ventura? I don't know. The first one? Yes. What's the password? New England clam chowder the red of the white. And then he goes the white yes. You don't remember that? No. You guys phone. That's a great series. Again, Sinophile. Cynophile. Oh yeah. Cynophiles.

Cipal. Paul Tom Sanderson. Is that so much better. Okay. Let's get two. it guys we start with fights to see what are the fights that you are dying to see in twenty 26 the fights that must happen now there's a caveat here oh caveat is you can't say like uh Amanda versus Kayla like that fight's booked yeah it has to be something that isn't booked just yet right because a lot of things can happen on route two funny notes about this we did this last year and it happened right before the the turn of the year so it was like December something of

of 2024. So technically this is our first one in two years, if you get what I'm saying. And we were talking about like, well, of course it's very funny. Of course Armand versus Islam is going to happen. Of course you can't. And they're like, oh gosh, it didn't actually happen. So things like that will be said, of course. But what really got us off on the wrong foot here was I continued to say over and over again that when I say, what's a fight you want to see, it's an actual A side versus a B side. It's a mono versus a mono. the three, okay, actually it was two of you, two of you had Humsud fighting for the middleweight title, if you recall. Sure did.

And this pissed me off because it's not a matchup. It's not an actual matchup. Pizzi and I said, if my memory serves me correct, Pizzi and I said Jones Aspinall, and then we had a whole little debate about whether or not it would actually happen. And we all kind of fell like on the right square. we all kind of said we hope but we wouldn't be surprised if it didn't happen we were all coming off of just a couple weeks prior Dana White saying 100% going to happen and we were all still saying like a lot of shit can happen here a lot of stuff can go wrong we hope this is the one we all want

to see but you guys Connor and Rick had it as your second you both said chamsat fighting for the belt now obviously that happened but my issue with that was it's not a matchup it's not a like oh my god I must see this I also suggested that this is more of a story or a scenario as opposed to a fight that must happen you understand what I'm saying so yes you guys were right about like this

fight is something and it came to fruition Jones Aspinall didn't I still think that you didn't quite get the rules I totally even a prediction though or is this just more of a desire a wish it's a want and a wish it's a disclaimer it's a disclaimer I like this I understand exactly what you're saying I'm looking here at the sheet

can you remind me what it says here in terms of your selection like there was like a John and there was like a John and Tom is off the table because everybody else is wrong I listened to it Honor Jordan got it wrong I told him before the show he got wrong I said you want to know what's right I said Jones Aspinall you know what my number

two was my number two was Kayla versus Pena and it happened but where did this come from? Honorable mention I'm so happy I listened to the show honorable mention I said and oh by the way I would love to see Dustin Porrier get a retirement fight in New Orleans and then I said

I don't care who it's against and then all of you guys said wait a second, wait a second you're not picking an opponent I didn't say that's a fight I just said that's a scenario that I want to see happen. Big difference between a scenario and a matchup and a fight so we have a new category

scenarios with us see just a scenario it was an honorable mention. So it sounds like I thought it's the same thing we thought. For me no it was this is the exact same market can I ask a question here? That was a ridiculous rule that you bent the rules like that away, what a pull on my part. He had

his retirement fight. It was in New Orleans. It was great poll, great poll, great pool, great. You should have had an opponent, though, if you were going to really, you know, do it. Also, is it always my fault, though? Like, is everything just, you know, like, oh, you know, this happened, oh, Jordan got it wrong. It's right here on the sheet. You put it's on the show, and that was my honorable mention.

The record show, you know, that's not what you have. Akin to the posters, I do have one real fight, and then I also have a hypothetical wing class guy. Are we getting into it? I'm just saying, and then I also beyond that and even more vague scenario. It gets vaguer and vaguer. Okay.

Well, this is perfect. Let's get it to it. I do want to mention Rick did say he wanted to see Max be Dustin's retirement fight and it happens. So shout out to you. We actually got a lot of these right. The only one that we talked about that didn't actually come to fruition, the major one, was Tom versus John. Like Humboldt for the belt. Amanda fought. Not Amanda.

Juliana fought Kayla. I even said, would love to see Amanda fight the winner of that fight. It didn't happen in 25. It's happening early 26. But for the most part, it wasn't our fault. That fight didn't happen. Obviously, it didn't happen. So we can't take the check for that.

But for the most part, we were on the right path with all the big fights. I thought Amanda and Kayla could have happened in 26. I was hoping for it. But we were off by a little bit. Like, it's going to happen ASAP. All right. So let's talk about fights we want to see 2026. G.

You just gave us a nice little teaser there. So why don't you go first? My concrete won. number one that I want to see is still remaining Iliate Taboria versus Islam Makashv, whether it's at 170, whether it's Islam going down to 155. The star power that these two guys have with the run that Islam is on with the undefeated record of Ilya Tuporia, it's just a match that I am craving more than any other. Okay, so let me ask you this. You want it, obviously. Of course. You think it happens. No. Because when we were talking about John Tom at the time

seemed doable. This feels I would die to see that fight. But it feels so far away from us right now. I agree. I agree. Especially with everything that Iliate Tabori is dealing with in this court case. And then the vacant lightweight title, you have to imagine he's going to have to defend that belt before he does anything with Islam Maheshv. Islamakshiv also dealing with a long list of contenders. But if they could somehow make it happen.

That would be number one for you. That's the number one fight I want to see in the UFC. By the way, speaking of Iliate Tepori, we can show you he appeared in Spanish court today. and it's just kind of we were talking about this and it's an interesting one it's a tricky one to talk about because we don't know what's right what's wrong who's right who's wrong

but to just see Ilya surrounded by you know what is that five six seven eight microphones I mean this is the type of stuff that you see you know famous footballers have to deal with or you know I mean this is even more so than anything you kind of really see here in America

like this type of suffocation people surrounding him trying to get a word from him. I was asking Andy about this, that outlet, Ola, that seems to be like a mainstream outlet. These are all mainstream outlets. He's talking about my priorities,

my daughter, my family that's my priority. According to reports, apparently his soon-to-be ex-wife wanted to take their daughter to Miami. He does not want that to happen. So it's unfortunately playing out in front of us. And as we said yesterday, hopefully, you know,

this is resolved in the best way possible and hopefully does not derail his career. You think back to the guy who was smiling and so confident and seemingly happy on the way to fighting Charles Olvera and making history and knocking him out in June. It's just very sad to see and we wish all the parties the best. And again, hopefully with kids involved, you hope that it doesn't get uglier and it's playing out in front of the public and that is very, very unfortunate. Okay, so you said that you want to see that fight. Do you want to keep going with your breakdowns here? I like this. What do we, what else we have here, Mr. G.C.

Should we not go around first just in case other people have like... I kind of just want to see what else he's talking about. He piqued my interest there, yeah. I get a little bit more vague here la Rick and me in 2025. Alex Pereira fighting at heavyweight. Okay, I'm cool. I'm cool with these being the number twos. It just can't be number one.

Yeah, whether it's against John Jones at the White House, I know they've teased that. Now they're saying that it's likely not going to happen, or if it's just against a Volkov or a Cyril gone while we wait for Tom Aspenor to come back. I would like to see Alex Pereira go for greatness and attempt to try and get a belt in a third division. Last year I asked you guys, I set the line at two fights for 2025 for Alex Pereira. Remember, he was coming off an incredible 2024.

He was scheduled, or at least rumored at that time to fight Magamara had not been announced just just yet. And I set the line at two, and you all took the over. You all thought he would fight more than twice. And the way in which we were talking about him was we would like to see him fight at heavyway. we would like to see him get like a Volkov type of fight, a James Irvin-Anderson Silva type of fight, and then fight the winner of Tom versus John. In the end, he loses to Magomed. That derails

everything, and then he gets the belt back. But a very different scenario for him coming into this year where it seems like, okay, he's back on top, but I don't know if he's going to fight three times this year. And I don't know, it seems like he really wants to fight at heavyweight. There are some talks already that Ulberg v. Prakaska is the fight that is being discussed. There was even a report that came out yesterday that it's a interim title fight that's being discussed

for later this year. But Mr. Yeri Prakaska actually went online and dispelled those rumors and actually did put out a very interesting nugget, which is well, you know, this fight, the one that was being rumored or reported or talked about or tweeted about was slated for the Miami card, which

is off the top of my head April 11th. He's having a baby, his first baby, his partner is set to give birth in April. He wants to fight before April. Here's what Yuri Pachas got to say about those rumors. Hello, everyone. Just quickly, all these information on Internet about me and Lulberg is not true because the fight is not confirmed yet.

It's still in negotiating. And just for me, for me, I can say, I want to fight until the end of March because in April is time for baby. this is the only one thing what I can say and that I want to fight for title

this is it believe the official messages from UFC and God bless stay strong let's go for that yes sir

the reason I bring this up now guys is because you GC say you want to see Alex fight at heavyweight that can affect Yuri Pachaska on his timeline right so what do we think what do we think we think that Alex

ends up fighting Yuri again Do you think that Alex never fights at 205? Do you think it ends up being Ulberg versus Yeri fighting for that vacant title? These discussions are very fun to have now because in a year from now we'll know how this story plays out.

I kind of feel like they might go in the direction of Alberg versus Yeri. The question is, do they make it for an interim belt? Do they make it for a vacant title? What do you guys think? I think they'll go that direction. Interim or vacant? Same thing.

In the modern UFC, they're exactly the same. Well, if it's vacant, that means Alex is definitely on his way. And if it's interim, it means when he goes, it will be vacate. Like, they're the same. But I just feel like... There's no difference. If it is interim, then that means there's plans for Alex to remain at 205, where with what we've seen with Islam Makashchev, what we've seen with Sean Wei Lee, with Elliott Taboria just in the last year, they all had to vacate their belt. So I feel like if they made the distinction that this is for a vacant title, then we're done with Alex Breyer at 205, and he is definitely going up to heavyweight. But then who's

making that call? If Alex says, I'm going up, then you don't need an interim. Or if, if Like, the UFC is the one who establishes interim. So if Alex says I'm going up, then you don't need an interim. There is no use for an interim. Right. It would be vacant. So, but what would be the reason to do an interim if Alex was planning to stay at light heavyweight? Oh, yeah.

It doesn't make any sense. So I guess it would be vacant or nothing. Here's what I'll say. Here's my feeling. I feel like the UFC is going to try to make a splash in 2026 because they have their new partner and they're going to try to make big fights and big moments. And so if there was ever a time for Alex to be like, yo, I want to go to heavyweight. Like, I think they'll be open to it this year. You know what I mean?

I should. I think they're looking for big things, especially in this world where there are no pay-per-views anymore and you're trying to get people to sign up and all that stuff. What do you think, Pete? Do you think Alex goes up to heavyweight? Here's the thing. If he goes to heavyweight, I want the FOIA hospital. Yeah. You don't like this idea of him fighting, like, you know, the way Anderson fought Stefan Bonner, the way he fought James Irving, horse Griffin.

I am with G.C. in that I wanted to be historic, but I don't want it to be historic against some dude. I want it to be against the dude. And I know obviously that's a lot's hinging on aspirinous situation with his eye and whatnot. But I don't want just to go up and fight someone. Like he's the biggest star in the roster, right? So like as you often say, that will make everyone better in the division. It will make the divisions more spectacular. But the situation here is we constantly have these other guys in this division, whether, be John Jones or Pereira in this case coming in and taking shine away from the actual champion. If I want Pereira to fight for history, I want him to fight the guy, the real guy, the undisputed champion. I have a solution for you, Petey, because my fight that I need to see next year

is Alex Pereira versus John Jones. That's the one. That's the one to make. It ties up nothing. These two guys that you're talking about entering the division, fight each other. The history is the fact that Alex Pereer could be the first one to defeat John Jones.

I'll do respect to Matt Hamill, and it would be a massive feather in the cap of Alex Pereira who could then fight the winner of Cyril Gaon and Tom Aspinall. It is perfectly aligned. Obviously, you would not hope for what happened to Tom Aspinall to have happened, or to Cyril Gan, quite frankly, who looked good in that fight until it was over. You would not hope for that scenario, but it has opened up a lane where Tom Aspinall and Cyril gone have business to finish, and John Jones and Alex Pereira have an opportunity to do something special. Okay, so I'll ask you the question that I asked you see. when he said he wanted to see Islam versus Ilya

how confident are you that this actually happens I get the want but do you think is it pie in the sky in your opinion or do you think it's attainable? I think it could really happen I think there's a better chance of it happening than Ilya versus Islam at this point. Do you agree with that? Yes. The question that I continue to have is

what's the barrier to it at this point? Well the barrier is John Jones John Jones has said I want to come back to fight at the White House do it there. It seems like it's not happening it seems like it's not happening based on what Alex said and what I'm hearing. It seems like he's not in the plans.

And so what he hasn't come out and said, what Dana White has not come out and said, and he hasn't been asked, so he's not going to come out and just say it. But the way I'm reading things is, it's White House or bust. So if it's not going to be the White House, is he fighting again?

Then I think it's unattainable. It's a fair concern. I do think by the end of the year, if John doesn't fight on that White House card, he will get the itch. And I think Alex where is. is the perfect opponent. In fact, John Jones has done himself a disservice if he wanted options

because the only name he's been saying has been Alex Pereira, right? He has been saying, this is the guy with the legacy. This is the guy who I really want to fight. Now you got, now there's, if Alex Pereira is now a heavyweight, it's free and clear for you, John. It's there. It's on the table. And I think the UFC, as you said, would want to make a big splash this year.

There is no bigger splash they could make than Alex Pereira versus John Jones. So I think it's realistic. Am I super confident? I wasn't even confident in John versus Tom when Dana was out here talking about 1,000 million percent, but I do think it's possible. I won't lie, I would love to see John Jones versus Alex Pereira.

That is definitely the fight I would like to see most for Alex Pereira at heavyweight, but even like a Cyril gone if he has to wait for Tom or a Volkov or something like that, rather than an Ulberg or Yeri 3, I would rather see him go up to heavyweight and fight those guys.

I agree with that. I will say there's one thing that we don't know the answer to no one's asked this yet the white house card is slated for june 14th right yeah and and that's a sunday interesting enough and it happens to be don't trump's birthday and some people think that's on purpose some don't who the hell knows my point is the reason i bring this up is is that going to serve as the international fight week event because you'll recall this past year and historically they do a june show but it's usually the first week of of june right that newer card was like june 7th And then the Atlanta show was June 14th, if my memory serves me correct, because I remember it was my son's bar mitzvah.

And then they did Ilya versus Charles June 28th or 29th, whatever it was, right? So if they're going to load the deck, if it's truly going to feature the White House card, five, six title fights, which I think would be insane because they would really suffer on the back end. But let's see, is there going to be a Vegas end of June early July card? and if so, which I hope there is, because that's been a thing and I think it's served them well. They do all the other stuff around it. And if so, that would be the perfect fight.

Like the timeline would work and maybe there's a way that you could convince John, hey, you wanted to fight in June, okay, for whatever reason, we're not going to make it happen, but we'll make it worth your while to do this one last fight as a retirement fight.

Do you know what I mean? We don't even know. Maybe because it's June 14th, that's just going to be the big fight card of the summer. I hope not, but I would love to see Pereer, versus Jones as the International Fight Week main event if that's the way it's going to be.

And if they are steadfast on Jones not fighting at the White House, if he really does if he wants to fight at the White House, that means that there is a part of him that still wants to fight. That's it. And so can you convince him to say, all right, I'll take this fight

and it'll be a T-Mobile and I'll still make a boatload of money. You bring that money back that you offer them the first. I don't know if you get the same number, but you bring some of that money back and you offer him the matchup that he's been saying he wanted, right?

It always felt like it was pulling teeth. It was reluctant when it came to Tom Aspinall. Every single time, John Jones got a microphone in front of his face. It was, Tom's not the guy. You guys are going to forget about this guy. You're building them up. I've seen this with Johnny Walker. All the things that he could do to disparage Tom Aspinall.

The opposite is true of Alex Pereira. It's always praise. It's always I want to fight him. I always think that would be a challenge. Now, transparently, I think the stylistic matchup is actually more favorable for Jones. You do that. You offer the money. You make it a big event.

You say, maybe it's not the White House, but we're going to make this a pillar of what we're doing this year. I think he gets that itch. Yeah. He's never said $30 million for Perra. Yeah. He said $30 million for Aspinall, yeah. I just think with how stacked the White House card probably is going to be

and how much of a spectacle, I doubt they're going to do International Fight Week just a few weeks later. Yeah. I hope that I like the international fight week even a thing, though. No, I mean, we call it that. It's not what it once was. Yeah. They did have the UFCX in the White House planes.

Yeah, yeah. That's what I'm thinking it's International Fight Week. Yeah, but it's not the same. See, in our capital. First of all. Special America 250. Yes, but people love to fly in and they like to go to the event. This is not going to be open to the public this event.

Yeah. You know, they're going to have the lawn that'll hold 80,000 people. The lawn. What is this lawn? It's the park. You had one last little tier there, right? Yeah, what's the crazy? What's the one last little tier?

Oh, it's not like crazy. It's just ultra vague. A card in Japan. Headlines by a Japanese fighter. I jot it down Tatsuro Taro or Kiyoji Horaguchi fighting for the belt. Love that. Absolutely love that. I would love to see it.

And I actually feel like that is very attainable. I think of all the three that I listed, it's the most attainable. Yeah. Prayer at heavyweight. That's, I think I can get those last two. All right, Rick, you go. You gave us one.

Any honorable mentions? Yeah, yeah, for sure. Tom Aspinel, Cyril, gone. That needs to be resolved. right that has to that has to happen that has to happen um at some point in the year i really want i really want this is a must but it's but it's like a must with a with an asterisk hamzschemiah versus sean strickland but i will accept i will accept homzat shemeyer versus fluffy hernandez a fluffy been john strickland i'll take either of those but but i must see hamzat sir john strickland's

the one i really want sean strickland is the one i really want are you just dismissing mr nassoldine Imavov. No, that can happen before, after, whatever, not at all. Oh, from beating Hamza. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I am. Outright, yes. Okay, wow. I'm just missing everybody from beating Hamza. By the way, there's a lot of people who think that he could be the guy. That of all

the guys right now. I am not one of them. All right, right, right. I am not one of those people. Okay. Here's another one of my, but you accept these as secondary. 100%. Armand Syracian versus UFC Lightweight Champion. Must. I'm fine with that as a secondary or church.

Must, must, must happen. It's a decent tertiary. We cannot just keep having Armand doing grappling matches and eating and all this stuff. I'm kind of okay with it. No, I'm not. I know you love it. I have others, but I feel like they're going to come up in the course of it. But let's leave it there for now and maybe I can circle back.

I just want to say the two kind of sticklers seem to have understood the assignment this year because you guys didn't give us a so-and-so fighting for the belt. Like Dustin's retirement? You nailed it. You nailed it. Did I not give us a fight? Thank you for... No, no, it was a Hamza and then asked me.

Anyway, we'll go to Pizzi. Ptze, Carol, why do you go up next, Ptze? Tell us. So, so great for it to be my turn. Thanks very much, lads. Well, why you say that? Welcome to the show, Beechis. I'm just saying, I was really enjoyed listening to the guys.

And now it's my turn. Oh, you need the hot tag every time. I haven't given my picks. You're going before me. Oh, wow. What's this? An exception to me. It's a great shout, lads.

I do disagree, though. You know exactly why, Pizzi. It's the wokenness. Don't let them talk to you like that. As soon as I've announced my political allegiance, Ariel's just treating me with a different pair of gloves. Sure, sure, sure, sure, sure. You know? Well, first up, I think I deserve a massive pat in the back here because there's no bullshit here.

There are people's names on either side of these fights. There's no, oh, maybe if he's the, oh, maybe he's going to find him. I have exact names, guys, okay? Love it. Done with John Jones. Finished. 2025, it's over. He's not mentioned here.

Islam Macachefiela Taboria on which you, G.C., top fight of the year. Thank you very much. much. Second fight. Tom Asmel v. Alex Pereira, which was mentioned, fair enough, fair enough. Look at this. Oh, if he's the lightweight champion, Ilya, Tauru, the Armin Sarukin, okay? That's another one. Guess what? I'm not finished. Joshua Van v. Pantosha rematch. Need to see it. Don't be tickling my balls. Don't be doing what you did there. And, you know, I need closure. Final one, Islam Makashchev, v. Shavkat, Rack. Ackmanoff, very good, what are yours?

I mean, first of all, could we just take, I like it. To the point, no BS, all very attainable, and actually, actually all very much in line with mine. I love it. You guys booking up Ilya for all these fights, huh? Well, not quite. It's good. I like it a lot. I'll go through mine.

At the very top of my list, and I did say to Jordan, I'm not ranking these, but I'll just, I'll say them as I wrote them down. We need finality to Aspinall versus Gunn. Yeah. We need finality to this. Oh, it's good show. Have to. And like that, for us to move along with the Tom Aspinall that we all believe will turn into the Tom Aspinall that we were all talking about, like, we have to finish this up.

I don't want to know Lamont Roach versus Tank Davis nonsense where he just kind of moves on. Like, Cyril Gan deserves that. And Aspinol needs to rectify this. And they need to fight each other to figure out who's the better man. And hopefully it's fair and square. And there's no eye poking and there's no, you know, there's no fouls or anything. I'm not going to get into, like, he did it on purpose, he did or not. Like, I just want to see this fight play out because guess what?

It was a very entertaining fight and it was playing out in a way that I think a lot of people didn't think it would play out. So I need to see that fight. I have to see that fight. The division needs to see that fight. They both need to see that fight. They both earned it and deserved it. And we can't move on without that fight playing out first.

So that one is at the top of my list. Interestingly enough, another one on my list, and these are all kind of, you know, in one big, as we say in the business, Buya Bees. Carlos Sleberg versus Yeri Pachaska is a fight that I'm very, very interested in. I would love to see this fight, and that would mean that Alex Pereira would move up to heavyweight, and I'm okay with him moving up to heavyweight.

And look, Pizzi, I agree with everything that you just said, and to be honest, as you were saying it, I looked down on my list real quick, and I was like, I kind of wish that I had your same energy. Yeah, I'm kind of done with the John Jones thing. Like, again, stop, you know, tick, you know, stop doing this. this to us, John, like, you're either in or you're either out. Whoa, whoa, whoa.

Okay? You're either in or you're either out. But that being said, if I'm going to give you Elberg versus Prochaska, I'll also add John Jones versus Alex Pereira to that list as well. Because it does seem like we're close. But I'm not, I'm not holding my breath and I'm not going to cry. But it's more because Alex Perra has done it all at light heavyweight. He beat Erie twice.

I know he didn't fight Carlos Elberg, but I think Carlos Elberg versus Yuri is a great fight. and it's a very, it's a very appropriate vacant title fight if that's what it's going to be. Alex moves up, fights John Jones, and they can all do their thing. No titles on the line, just fight it out. So that one would have to happen if the other one happens, which is Carlos and Yeri fighting for the belt. I'll give you a couple others. Hit me. Guess what?

Guess what? No Ilya versus Islam on my list, because I don't think it's going to happen and I'm not trying to waste anyone's time. Let me stop here for one second. That wasn't the criteria. I have a question. I have a question for you guys. Who do we see return to the UFC first? John Jones or Ilya Teporia?

Ilya, Ilya, Ilia, Ilia. You guys think so? Yes. I'm not certain we ever see John Jones fight in the UFC. Agreed, agreed. My prediction, by the way, and I don't even think it's a bold prediction, is that he doesn't fight. That it all hinges on the White House,

and if he doesn't get the White House, he won't fight on this other date that we're talking about. I have faith in my goat. Dan Boy holds gorgeous, guys. I think he's open to it. There's a lot of money to be made, my friend. No, I don't think Dana White won't invite him back. I think he only wants to come back to the White House.

He views it as the perfect send-off. And if he's not going to get it, he's going to be like, all right, I'm good. I'm going to go do Alpha Reality 4. You'll do it again. He'll be a reoccurring character on the show. Can I give you another one? Yeah, yeah, please. Can I say, I kind of want to see Ilya versus Armin more than Ilya versus Islam at this point.

I do too. Ilya versus Armin is big-time stuff. and to me Islam is a welterweight Islam is a welterweight at this point so Ilya versus Armin is the fight that I want to see I want it to be for the lightweight title I mean did you guys see did you guys see old Islam playing a grapple ball

or whatever it was what was that wrestle ball don't they call it Dagestani basketball isn't that what it was called back in the day I don't know what it is but he looks like he's a middleweight yeah what do we think of these moves here by the way I mean look at these arms by the way creatine man Pizzi you see this is that John Pork

Pork? What is that Look at that. The lefty lay is nice. He's got that sweet little left. Looking like a young Jalen Brunson out there. Look at the takedown. It's an insane. So when you get the takedown, you change possession.

It looks like. Oh, a little jabstub. I mean, no, you don't have to dribble in this one. Move the pivot. That sky hook? That's a young Kareem. Look at that pass right there. That's a Derek Rose.

Just teardrop. Teardrop lay up. He looks like Habib with that hair. Look at the ball movement right here. Red Holter. Oh, left. Another left. Right side of the hoop.

A biggest key with Islam is you've got to force this guy to go right and use his right hand. 100%. He keeps shooting with the left. Obviously, he's a lefty, but on the right side, which is very... He's lefty no matter what. Yeah. Is that a real thing? Like, do you think people are, like, the NBI and NBC here?

Are people sitting around at home in Dagestan watching this? I'm going to say it's not like the NBI and NBC. It's kind of fun, though. I'm not going to lie. I think people are tuned in because it probably is a celebrity game. All right. Anyway, a few others, if I may. Ilya versus Patty.

Could we see this? I mean, four or five years in the making. You guys got a lot of fights for old Ilya to pour you. Yeah, hell yeah. I'm not confident he's coming back so soon. You guys got 20 different fights for Ilya. We sure do. Can we just say, hang on, hang on, hang on.

I'm hearing too much of this. Oh, you know, I'm not confident. That's not the fucking criteria, okay? The criteria is what voice do we want to see? I'm with you, Pete. I'm still giving them, but then I'm asking on the back end. I'm asking on the back end. I'm asking on the back end.

Are you confident or not? I know, we're getting, you know, made fun of from our colleague here, New York, Rick. There's no making fun. Oh, look at all these aliens. Well, I mean, there has to be some basis in reality, right? I want to see, you know, two random guys off the street fight. I'm just going to name. Of course, but I want to actually have this come to fruition, no?

I mean, you book 17 fights for John Jones. The guy turned down 30 million. I picked one, one fight. 30 million. That he will come back and fight this year. I did say that Islam is a welterweight. That being said, I want to see Big Boy Arm and go up to Walter Waite and fight him. Wait, so not Ilya?

Yeah. Why did you get rid of it so quick? I want to see Big Boy Armand go up to Walter 8 and find this after he gets the title at 155? Hell yeah. So Ilya loses, but he's in these other fights, but then Armine... You know what? It's just what voice you want to see, lads. That's all it is.

By the way, how about this scenario? I feel like the Dennis Rodman in the last dance. He says, to hell with you guys, I'm going up to 170 and I'm going to fight this guy. You're telling me you'd rather see Michael Morales versus this. at this point other than Armand versus Islam? Yes. He's got a loss on his record, all right? He's struggling to get a title fight at 155. Do you really think he can just waltz into 170 and immediately get a title shot?

I would like to think, you know? I don't think so. He's having a hard time getting it at 155 is proper division. My biggest friction is this is that everybody was wetting themselves over Ilya versus Islam, and now it's possible, and you're like, nah, I don't want it anymore. No, no, no. Here's a more realistic one. P.T. and I on the same page. want to see a rematch of the flyway title that has to happen and with the news that mr alks pantosha avoided surgery some way somehow i don't know if it happens next i'll go out on a limb just putting it out there i don't think it happens next and that's not with any intel that's just a

feeling maybe they do this japan card like april may and then you know uh the winner fights and maybe josh is the winner and then he fights and there might be more discussion regarding josh i would like to see that fight at some point even if it's not for the belt to be honest i want to see it play out Two real quick ones. We have to see Marab versus Jan three at some point. I would like to see it next, to be honest. Why not? I think Marab deserves it.

I think he's earned it. And, you know, they fought once he was dominant. Jan fights him the second time. He's dominant. Let's see it. Third time, proper training camp. And I'm seeing here, we could skip this one, Jordan, the last one on my thing. Because it's like...

Should I just say it out loud for you? Yeah. No, you put it. The email says... You can put it, you could put it. You could put it. Well, when you said you didn't want that, I actually changed my bar. Go ahead.

I covered up for you, but now I feel like it. No, no, no, no, no, no. So you guys. I just want to have this on the record for a second here. Put it. You're like, Eric, you're an idiot for reacting to you guys having Ilya in 17 different fights when we don't even know what this guy's future is. We're hoping for the best.

It's just points we want to see. I just said one. You're over here, booking John Jones. in every wake class. You guys from head time. Just one fight. I had a few others. I want to see my graphic.

I want to see Ilya versus John Jones. I want to see Ilya versus John Jones. There it is. There it is. Okay. Now that we finish the Ilya portion of the show. I want to see Piotrion back. And I'm okay with if Marab is the next fight.

But at some point, hopefully in 2026, maybe later, I do want to see Sean O'Malley versus Piotrion. And I believe I had that last year. This fight has to happen at some point. I do. I love this fight so much. Sean just has to get into this territory. He has this big fight against Song Yadong coming up. Win that.

I would like to see Jan versus O'Malley. I think that they are great together. By the way, you know it's so fun about this. When you did speak about it last year, Jan was nowhere near the pedal picture. All you said was you want to see a five round fight between the two of them. I love it. Thinking that it will be a fight night or maybe like a Komen.

Here we are. I still want it. It's a great one. McKenzie Dern versus Zhang Wei Lee that feels like it's going in that direction has to happen Costello Van Steenis

versus Johnny Eblen Love it Please Let's resolve this I know it seems like It's not the next thing That is on Costello Van Steenis's agenda

But God I would love to see that run back It was such an incredible Like the drama of that one was incredible I'd love to see Johnny get a chance At redemption there As a long-reigning champion Cedric Dunebe versus a local bin man.

I don't care who it is. Love it. Find somebody for this motherfucker to fight so I can see him fight again. What the hell is going on with Cedric Dumebe? Who seemed like one of the biggest stars in the sport and now has just been sideline forever. Bring back Cedric Dume. Anybody. Find somebody with a pulse.

That would be tremendous. PFL could use him. I would love that. Yeah, please. Okay. Anyone else? I think we got them all covered. I see Francis fight again.

I mean, I would love to see that. Nemcov is Francis versus Nemcov, the one? I'd love that. Yes, Wildcard, Waltcard? Just thought of it right now. Sure. Paul Hughes v. Patrick Habirora. Okay.

Love that. I don't mind that. Love that. Too soon, too soon for Patrick? That's not my business. I think it's good because you want to see Hughes get back on track and it's a good test. Like, I kind of like it at this point in their careers. I'm okay with it.

Can I throw out another one? Carlos Pratchez Michael Morales That's a good one I want to see that one Even with the loss By Morales Yeah even with the loss

All right You said Cedric doing versus anyone I'd like to see Shavkat Rock when I'll fight anybody Hell yeah I liked Pizzi's Islam Islam versus Shavkat

Let's do it Let's do it Let's just do that Islam's next fight Is against Poh Kamaru Usman

Kamara Usman Oh my god Fuck Tomorrow Usman And then if Connor McGreg goes back And beats Michael Chandler Conner McGregor.

Oh, my God. It will be. If he'll go and will. All those guys will be. Reignite that bitter old feud. Oh, yeah. No. Also, I would love to see Dakota Dichava actually fight for the PFL title.

That would be like Dakota versus Liz Karmouche. That would make a lot of sense. What's the timeline on her? Do we know when she got injured and not going to be on that Dubai car, but not sure. And maybe that's a blessing. You know, maybe they have her fight. I don't know why they didn't have an earned title fight for that car, but maybe there were too many. Who knows?

all right do we feel good about the fights yeah all right so we move along now to the uh the much argued about breakout fighter or fighters really because we have a bunch breakout fighters of the year may I remind you that one New York Rick last year said that

Hamza Chamaev would be his breakout fighter of the year now he's going to sit here I could assure you he's going to sit here and say please please he won the belt and then look okay let me ask you question on Monday on Monday who is your breakout fighter at the year who is your pick uh wait isn't that today no no on Monday on Monday who is your pick for last year oh uh Joshua van Joshua van would you say that Joshua van was in the same spot as Hamzat Shamaev a

year ago today no he was a relatively unknown fighter he was not who was about to break through because he won four fights ended up Hamza didn't lose so why did you have Hamza as your breakout fighter. If this, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if your definition of a breakout fighter is what you're about to tell us now, why isn't Hamzaa your breakout fighter of 2020? Very easily explained. I'm glad you asked. It's about the distance. It's about where you came from to where you get to. You were so adamant. My expectation is that Hamza out would have fought me. If he had fought one more time against anybody, I would have you had a hundred percent to him. So good. Because he was a superstar. And he's even, he's an even bigger superstar now

that he's UFC champion. If he had gotten one title defense in, the gap between where he started and where he ended would have been more significant. But the distance that Joshua Van got this year from where he started is why he was the breakout fighter. My prediction was based on the fact that I thought Hamza was going to enter a stratosphere in the Alex Pereira, John Jones, those level of guys. And I do feel like he just fell a little bit short. If he got one more fight in, I would have a lot of people that hated that fight. yeah but he's a bigger star now holding your belt I would actually say he's a little

you're lying to yourself if you'd say that he wasn't a candidate for breakout and he wasn't the breakout fighter of 20th no he was not the breakout fighter of 20th and he wasn't even a candidate he was past the point of breakout candidates I want to just bring up something here actually I think we Honor Jordan would you bring this up here

okay so this is the email where Ariel set up how we're doing breakout fighters yes okay actually no it's all the awards here we go taping this Thursday December 19th Biggest stories to monitor flights we must see. Breakout fighters.

What the fuck? Not prospects. Not prospect. Yes. See, that part threw me off a little bit because naturally you think if you're going to do breakout fighters, like you'd want to do breakout fighters, you'd want to do a prospect like Joshua Vann. I'm going to have a fucking aneurysm.

You'd want to do something like Joshua Vann. But you can't pick Joshua Vann, right? Can you? Okay, yeah. He's a prospect. So I'll tell you what I have. I have a Tiba Gotee. No, wait, no, stop.

Sorry, I'm sorry. No, no, this needs to be said, Pizzi. That's a good shout, Pete. Let's just finish this. Here's the thing. Last thing on this, and we will move on. No, no, no, yeah, please. When I said not prospects, I didn't mean who do you think is going to be the prospect of the year.

I said, who do you think is going to be the breakout? Meaning, you interpreted it as prospects don't count, meaning a prospect who will graduate. I was saying, like, don't give me someone who, I don't know, a Patrick Habirora, give me someone who would be a good candidate for a prospect of the year. Give me someone who will break through like, hey, Josh Van. Do you understand? Do you understand now? Yeah, but Josh Van's a prospect.

It is a bit confusing. The text does just say not. He's a prospect. Well, here's the beauty of this situation. Only one person misunderstood it. You, the rest understood it. I follow rules. Yeah, I know you guys don't. You're not able to follow.

I follow rules. I agree. The email is confusing. I also disagree with Rick choosing. Hamzat Shamaev is the breakout. Petit had Peyton Talbot. That sounds like a prospect to me, but a good pick. Can I just say?

Can I just say? Petit had Payne Talbot, and I want to give you more props. I want to give you more props. Thank you. Payton didn't end up being breakout fighter of the year, but he ended up being a lot of people's most improved, which is fine. You were touting the fact that he was going to roll through Barcellus

and all that stuff. It's totally fine. Mention, mention O'Dargoi. You mentioned Josh Van. Thank you. You mentioned Josh Van. So shout out to you. That's good work.

You mentioned Josh Fan. speaking of locks Mr. G.C did have Venetius Locke Dog, Lockdog Olavera. Shot out? Yeah.

Got into a heated rivalry with JLP. No, it's true. We're still not sure. He's trying to break out. We have put that in our fights we want to see. I'm okay with my pick.

I'm okay with my pick. I had Payton Talbot as well. Yeah, those sound like great prospect. Winner learned. Yeah, he was a big. Talk about Most Improved, though. I remember after that we were like, oh, yeah, Pizzi and Ariel had

Peyton Talbot as their breakout fighter. That's not looking too hot. And look at the turnaround. You had a great turnaround by the end of the year. Amen. All right, Pizzi, give us your breakout fighters of 2026. You're not going to believe that. Number one is Manchester top teams at Tebow Gutier.

I think he's going to be the next big African start already is. He is fighting. He's fighting a good bit down in the division. I think the next guy, according to topology, he's fighting is like 64th. But the way he's doing, lads in, he can climb the rankins, very quickly. And I think by the end of the year, he'll be in a big spot. And I think he has a skill set to make good on a big, a big spot like that. It's a bit of a slow burn with him, right? I don't mind that. Yeah. I don't mind because he's very raw. Like, you know, um, it's not

so long since Carl Prince took him from Cameroon and has been bringing him around the gym. Like, I can remember when Carl Forrest started talking to me about him. He was like, he, he just doesn't really know how to spare you. He is jacking dudes up in the gym, you know? He is really beating the shit out of people in there. So he's still very young. I think he's incredibly talented. Outside of him, I've got, and this is probably a bit of a stretch given that he's just beat Chikaze. Kevin Vallejos, I think he's going to be knocking on the door of toilet contention by the end of the next year.

Also have the aforementioned Patrick Habirora, who's coming off a massive 2025 for PFL. He looks like a guy that's going to be the next Hughes, Dakota, Digital. of a, Cedric Dunebay, who we also mentioned earlier. Marion Santos, at Fedowait, I think he is a brilliant, brilliant talent. I think he fights very technically well, and he has a great fight IQ for someone that's so young. I expect him to do really, really big things in the Fedowweight Division. And finally, I have Mansour Abdul Malik, who at Middleweight looks like an absolute blue chip prospect. Wow, wow, wow, what a list.

Golly, what a list. I'll go next, because I have to say, we're, very much in line. Peti and I. Very much aligned. It's an unbelievable thing. I'll give you my name. There's not much more that I can add.

Number one, Mansour Abdul Malik, who I was very impressed by when he came on the show and obviously have been very impressed by with his work in the UFC. He had that win over Antonio Tricoli back in December. Prior to that,

had the weird one with Cody Brundage that was overturned, whatever. And then the win over Nick Klein at the very beginning of the year and late last year had a win in his UFC debut, also a Contender Series product at the moment,

8-0-1, and you speak to Eric Nixick, the head man over at Extreme Couture about him. You speak to his manager, Brian Butler. They could not be more excited about his potential,

about his future. So I, too, I'm excited and think that this time next year, I mean, the guy is like an old-school fight fan. He gets it. I mean, he has the skill. He's still very raw talent.

Shout out to him, looking forward to seeing where he goes from here. The aforementioned, Kevin Vallejos, who we also had at the very end of the year, had a tremendous win, has had a very nice start to his career, has become very fun on Twitter as well.

Looking for that Cub Swanson fight beat Giga Chikaze. Prior to that, beat Danny Silva, prior to that beat Sungwu Choi. So he had three fights in 2025, had a contender series fight in 2024 as well. So shout out to Kevin, who obviously reps Argentina in the UFC. And the other name that I had on the list, would you believe it, Pizzi? the aforementioned Atiba Gautier of Manchester top team

That's crazy Yeah it's I mean You know it's amazing I'm looking at his record And You know He made his UFC debut in 2025

I thought he had maybe one In 20204 Was a Contender Series fight But I mean you look at this guy First of all He's built like a freaking I mean He's chiseled out of stone

He's got unbelievable power Great skill Huge for the Way class Very very impressive and again, you speak to the guys over at Manchester top team, they could not be more excited about his potential. So those are three names that come to mind as far as breakout fighters to watch this year.

Mr. New York, Rick, who do you have? Yeah, we whiffed on it last year, but we're going back to the well. It's going to be Hamza Tshamai of again. No, it's not. It's not. I would love it just spoke with it. Do you know what fuck is?

I feel good about the justification. I wouldn't put it past Rick to do that. But the answer is actually out of left field, but I feel like it makes a lot of sense, and it's going to make even more sense later, but Gable Steeveson. Gable Steeveson is about to explode. That's a great one.

Explode. Because I'm predicting some things, and we'll talk about them later, but Gable Steeveson is about to be part of the MMA mainstream and cultural conversation very shortly. And so Gable Steeveson is my pick. Some other names I had, I had, Gautier.

Natalia Silva, I think, is bound for something. Like, I think she's going to be game in a potential fight against a flyway champion. I think she might have the opportunity to get it done. I'm not necessarily predicting that, but if she can, I think that's going to be major for her. Myron Santos,

friend of the boys in the back, I think he's going to have a big year. He's a really solid prospect. Quill and Sal Kild, I think, has to get a shout after that nasty knockout of Nazrat Haq Pras. I think he's due for some things. I think he was like 4 and 0 in

in 2025. He's probably bound for some big things. So some big names, some big opportunities for some names coming up. But for me, like, Gable was my one that I locked in on. I think he wasn't going to have a big year. I'm actually mad at myself for not thinking of that one. That's a tremendous one. I think that he'll debut in the UFC this year. We may talk about that later in the show. G.C.

Yeah, I'm not adding too many names to this. You guys are pretty much covering them all. My main one was Atiba Gotea, just the way he's been knocking people out. He's already got a fight booked on this first pay-per-view numbered event. in the Paramount Plus era has potential to get another massive knockout there. I think people could really start paying attention to him. Like Rick mentioned, killing Sal killed. He's booked on the second card of this Paramount Plus era.

Got too nasty knockouts, obviously the one on Nasrod Haq Parest in his last fight. I think if he continues to do so, he could blow up, get that Aussie backing behind him. One of you guys didn't mention Luke Riley. He's got this beef going on with y'all as Kevin V.A. host, that could be a potential bout between rising stars, got a nasty knockout in his UFC debut back in November, plus he fights out of the same gym as Patty. If Patty's able to have success beat Justin Gaci and all rising tides lift all boats. Manuel Torres, one of my favorite fighters to watch, had a great 2025 going 2 and 0 with two first round knockouts. 16 first round finishes in his

career. I could see him becoming a fan favorite, get that Mexican backing behind him. Two more here, Melchie Costa, 4-0 in 2025, already has this fight booked against Dan Igay. I think people could really start noticing the Winstreet that he's on if he's able to keep it rolling. And then lastly, in the women's divisions, Carly Judice, a great 2025, two nasty KOs, love watching her fight, one of the most entertaining women's fighters on the roster. If she can keep it up in 2026, I think people could start paying more attention to her. Love it. Love it. Can I add another one? Because I sent in this list before his last fight. Zabali Shaidulev of Rise in Fame.

The featherweight champion 17-0 had an insane finish at their year-end event against Mikuru Asakura. He, in many people's opinions, is the best featherweight not in the UFC. And some, some, some would say, one of the best fighters not in the UFC. And not to suggest that he's going to be leaving anytime soon, but he is a very, very dangerous and violent fighter. Also, Ilholm Nazimov, who had that short notice knee knockout and everyone loves

them over there against Roberto DeSuzza on that Risen card. Who says we don't talk about Risen around here? Yeah, it's about time. Yeah, those are two names to look out for as far as potential rising stars, breakout prospects. If they get over to America and fight over here, that would

obviously help their cause, but they seem to be doing quite well over there as well. So a lot of names, a lot of exciting names. Any other honorable mentions before we move on, guys? No. No. All right. So let us let us move along now and talk about stories that we are monitoring, that we are watching for, that we are looking forward to covering, that we are looking forward to talking about.

I can tell you that last year, Mr. New York Rick said he wonders if John Jones is going to fight. That's going to be one of the big stories and he was right. That ended up being one of the biggest stories of the year. We kept talking about it. Will he, won't he? Will he? 30 million. Is he going to fight all this stuff? So, of course, that was a massive story. Does Connor McGregor fight? That was a big story. Although I feel like most people last year, not to say that it wasn't a big story, but I don't think it was as big as John because I think most people are kind of like, you know, I'll believe it when I see it. And then once the White House thing got out in July, it felt like, okay, this is a story to talk about in 2026. Do you guys agree

with that. It felt like back into the year and no one was really talking about will Connor fight or not. No. Well, once the press conference cancellation and all that stuff happened, I think it was off people's radar. Yeah. You did mention the UFC's rights deal being up with

ESPN and seeing how that would play out. So obviously that was a gigantic story. And you also mentioned whether or not the competition would step up, whether or not there would be a strong competitor to the UFC and quite frankly, I don't think that there was won, but obviously, you know, the fall of Belator, the merging of Belator and PFL, maybe made things a little

more interesting, but there really was no competition. Connor also mentioned whether or not John Jones would fight Tom in particular as being one of the big stories to watch. So obviously that was in some people's eyes, the biggest story of the year. Would Pereira move up to heavyweight? that was a bit of a story but I feel like after he lost to Uncleayev it no longer became about that it became about

you know would would he get the belt back would Kayla Harrison become UFC champion she did and that was obviously a relatively big story would Isamahatcha move up

to 170 he did so that was a good one who does Pantosha fight next because you know he was kind of blowing through the competition

obviously we know what happened with him and you had mentioned will the UFC do a show in a new country and they did in two? Azerbaijan and Qatar.

Qatar, yes. So they didn't too. Maybe I would argue definitely not Azerbaijan, maybe Qatar but a lot of people were thinking maybe South Africa, Spain, something like that. Definitely wasn't expecting either of those. PTC said

Tom John Saga, UFC's broadcast deal, which I thought was a very astute one on your part, given the fact that it's not a European story and you often say like, I don't know about all this TV stuff, just, you know, I'm a genius. Oh, you guys get all upset about the broadcasters, who cares? What's next for Connor? PFL and Bell Tour disgruntle fighters.

Remember this time last year, there were a lot of fighters taking to Twitter, as they say, to talk about how unhappy they were, Aaron Pico, Patricia Pipple, guys like that, Mr. Patchy Mix. And then you also mention, which I thought was a great shout, the lawsuit, the class action lawsuit, and it had not yet been, like, fully resolved and approved. And also, there are the other ones, right? The Cajun Johnson one, the Misha Serkanov one. You had mentioned, like, what's going to happen with those? And those are obviously big stories.

Maybe they don't get the, like, the big splash that others do. But certainly, I think, stories that were worth mentioning. My big story, as far as, like, the stories to watch was the rights deal. The rights deal was the biggest story to watch heading into, you know, I love that stuff. I love paying attention to that stuff. And so, yeah, it was one that at the time, if you may recall, I went on a whole little rants saying, you know, the new M.O for a lot of these leagues was to split up their deal. And so I think a lot of us thought that, you know, the UFC would split it up. And I did predict that they would stay with ESPN and that they would maybe give, you know, 10 or so shows to an Amazon or to a Netflix.

and Paramount Plus was on no one's radar. They had different ownership, but it obviously ended up being a big deal. I was talking about pay-per-view. No one predicted Paramount Plus and no one predicted the death of pay-per-view. Like no one. No one saw that coming.

Certainly not this time last year. But it was definitely the story to watch and the story to monitor and it ended up being that in many people's eyes. John fighting Tom, Connor making his return, what had happened, and also the future of PFL and Belator.

I don't know what that was. But the... Just on a... The death of pay-per-view. Yeah. It was interesting. I saw Shaky Shore, the legend himself, tweeting today.

I don't know if you saw this. TNT, box office for the paddy fight. Just thought that's interesting, given that we're moving into this non-paper-view era or Paramount. TNT sports charging for that one. Yeah. And that's sort of consistent, right,

with like, when there's a big European star in the main event. Honor or a Habib or something like that. A Tom, even, I think we've seen it before. usually not, unless it's Connor, usually not when it's in the middle of the night, right? It would be like an Abu Dhabi card that they would charge for. Absolutely, yeah. It's usually in primetime UK.

So I just think that's interesting. A lot of Canadian fans asking, by the way, because they're in the same boat as you. Oh, really? Nothing's happening in Canada. Like, it's still pay-per-view. In fact, in Canada, every show is pay-per-view. I was going to say, for TNT, it's not, though, right? It's only certain ones

that they select. Maybe one or two max a year. Canada is, Canada's in the Stone Ages now because of their Sportsnet deal, Roger Sportsnet, it's every show. They're us last year. So a lot of fans are confused. So do we keep calling them pay-per-views? No. Premium live events, baby.

I like Premium Live events. I like Premium Live. On the Paramount Plus they call them numbered events, right? They are calling them number-dives. It's going to get messy. It's going to get messy. By the way, I actually did think death of pay-per-view is possible because I thought UFC would go to Netflix, if I'm being honest. I thought Netflix would buy up the whole package

and just kill off pay-per-view. It turns out as Paramount that did it instead. But I did think it was a possibility. But I feel like Pizzi, it's still kind of close to us. You know, like if there's the one or two, one off, that's the closest you'll get to our version of it. All right. Yeah. And I don't think it's stopped by it. It's 25 quid or something as well. Yeah. It's not like they're asking people to pay 25 quid. Okay, so the pay per view would start at 2 a.m. local time, right? Now that it's 9 p.m. start. If you want to stay up to see Patty, though, I get that.

Well, he's going to fight at 5 a.m. On the wrong month to ask. I think I'll call me Sheetty Carol in here. By the way, Ptie, if you pay for it after the fact, is it less? Like if someone says like, oh, I'm going to wake up at 8 o'clock and watch the show, do you think it's cheaper or no? No, no, you got to get it. No, same price.

We don't mess with that kind of shit around. No, I get that. I'm going to lie. You said Sheetzy Carol. I thought you meant that you slept through it. Yeah, me too. Oh my first thought was actually like two sheets to the wind It works on so many that's a lot

He gets drunk enough that he's just like I'm buying it Well I'll start on this one My big story to watch At the very top I'll continue with the TV stuff Is how does the transition go What does it all look like right The UFC is no longer in the pay-per-view business

They're now in the PLE or numbered event business Every single show is going to be behind the Paramount Plus paywall. And in fact, I will tell you that they've announced officially, we talked a little bit about this and I tweeted about it, but there was a press release that came out today that Paramount Plus is launching the UFC Archive Library ahead of the live event debut on Saturday, January 24th. This is the press release that just came out over 1,400 UFC fights, moments and events and event programs, now streaming on Paramount Plus.

The archive content is organized by collection, including series. select UFC numbered events from the 2000s, 2010s, 2020 through 2025, legends, career defining bouts from the likes of GSP, Chuck O'Dell, Anderson Silva, Ronda, Rousey, Brock Lester, more current champions, fight collections featuring all reigning UFC champions, KEOC City, highlight real stoppages and knockout finishes. So basically, like right here, you can see this on your app, you click on Josh Van, and you get all his fights. It's very clean, it's very smooth, it's easy, and I know that some people are talking about you know, some fights are missing, I suspect over time it's all going to get filled out. But this is nice.

This is very nice. So I would say so far, so good. But honestly, when I'm talking about the transition, I'm not even talking about this. Because I'll be honest with you, it's very rare that I'm like, yeah, let me sit back and watch UFC 184. But what I'm talking about is, all right, the nine o'clock starts, you know, going to a smaller platform. We've talked about, like, the ESPN socials and the TV and the rub that they get from the first takes in the sports centers of the world that's not going to be at their disposal. Will there be the ancillary programming? You know, is there going to be a good guy, bad guy?

Is there going to be pre-shows and post shows and all this stuff? Are they going to have podcasts? What kind of journalism are they going to do? What is CBS sports going to be like? Are they going to actually do journalism? Are they actually going to tell stories? Are they going to break news? Like, what is this transition going to be like?

We were there, Rick and I, when there was the transition. to ESPN. Dana always mentions, by the way. He always says, we kind of got off on the wrong foot. And I always kind of wondered if I had anything to do with that. But I would say at the very beginning,

certainly in those first couple of years, like, I thought ESPN was covering the UFC very fairly accurately. There was my show. There was the show would chill. Eventually, the DC show came. We had a lot of stuff on the dot com. Is it going to be the same

or is it going to be a pared down version? Is it going to be more like WWE on Peacock or WWE on NBC or Netflix, where there's not a lot of ancillary stuff happening around it. I'm curious to see how they do the matchmaking, will they try to go for those big events? So all that stuff and more,

just this whole transition, this whole new era for the UFC, is a massive story and one that I'm looking forward to monitoring and covering. I'll just give you a couple other ones. How does the White House card play out? This is obviously going to be a gigantic story. I would imagine all of you feel the same way. Who's going to end up on it?

What's going to happen? Does Gable make his debut? on there? How many title fights are they going to be? Who's going to get the main event slot? What does it look like? The logistics. It's going to be gigantic. It's going to be massive. Does that card err on CBS in some way, shape, or form, or is it just a Paramount Plus card? How many fight cards actually err on CBS? How many events? How many prelims? How many of anything airs on linear television? I'm very, very curious about that. And I'll stick with the, you know, the broadcasting theme. What happens to the PFL? The PFL's deal with

ESPN is up. at the end of this year, if they don't resign with ESPN, where are they going? Are they going to a Netflix? Highly doubted. Are they going to an Amazon? Maybe, but it doesn't seem like Amazon's really in that business right now. Where are they going? Are they going to a TNT or a TBS?

Maybe, but they tried it with one. It didn't really work out. Where are they going if they're not staying on ESPN? I've long thought that if ESPN is not in business with the number one organization, they're not going to be in business with the number two, the distant number two, at least for now. I'm not trying to throw shade on PFL. I thought we gave them a lot of love on Monday's show. But ESPN, the worldwide leader, is in business with the top dogs of a respective sport.

And so I'm really curious to see how this plays out and where they end up going. Rick, why don't you go next? Yeah, mine is similar to last year's, which is like, and it's an expanded version, which is can the UFC bring back some of their stars? Like, is Connor McGregor going to fight? Is John Jones going to fight? Is Elliott Toporia going to fight? Is Ronda Rousey going to fight?

Like, the lack of those, like, A-plus top-level stars was evident in 2025. And I think it's going to be a topic of conversation for 2026 as well. That White House card, I think, is going to mitigate some of that because of how stacked it's likely to be. But, man, like, they could really use a fight out of John Jones. They could really use a fight out of Connor McGregor. Definitely, Iliott's Aporia. You guys got them 20 fights each. So they need some of these people back.

And hell, if you could get a Ronda Rousey fight in there, that'd be pretty fantastic. So will the top stars be back? By the way, Ilya on his own, like with so much doubt surrounding his future is a story unto himself, right? For sure. Like this is changing almost every day, just whether or not I'll fight. Because I don't think anyone could have predicted that, you know, he was like a locomotive. Yeah. So that's a huge one.

Because, you know, John, Connor, like, if they never fight again, I don't think anyone would be used for. If Ilya doesn't fight this year, it would be a shocker. might have this. Some of them might have this. Okay, okay, okay, chill. Just say, just say. Okay. Why are you so angry today?

Is it because you're woke now? Are you going to dye your hair purple? I think Petez has to lead the next category. I don't. I don't. He led the last one, by the way. Oh, okay? I should lead them all because I'm different than you guys.

Okay. Whoa. Please go ahead. Wait, what do you mean? All right. I also had the White House thing. I also had, will the paramount, I had a different turn of phrase for it,

but I wondered how the paramount relationship is going to be material different different than the ESPN, right? Like, what are the little quirks and nuances that are going to just be a little bit different between the switching of the broadcast partners? Here's two that I think we're unique. One, what impact does Zufa boxing have on the UFC, if any, right? Like, if there are resources being brought towards Zufa boxing and they are taken away from the UFC product, taken away from the MMA product? What impact is that going to have, if any, right? Like, is Dana's attention all on Zufa boxing? Are people who are in the production, all focused on Zufa boxing

and what impact is that going to have on the UFC, if any? And similar to last year, like, can the PFL build any new momentum in this iteration? I think they ended last year with actually like a very straightforward and solidified game plan. Like, I think the streamlining

of the PFL at the very end of last year made a lot of sense to me. John Martin talking about instituting promotional champions in a very clean way, the lack of the tournament structure. This to me feels like something you could build upon in a 2026 and can they actually take that that foundation that they've laid and build on it in 2026 is a question for me all great ones and all all stories that i think will play out throughout the

year and won't just be like a non-issue come february they will be uh you know sustainable stories throughout the year gc why do you go next uh yeah again not a not a ton of uh variation for me a lot of similar ones uh my biggest one being uh my phrasing of it was the paramount plus experience just essentially from how does it look on the app how does it look on the screen what kind of original content do we get surrounding it how does Paramount treat the UFC how many times do we see it on CBS

how much does it get propped up the White House card everything like that just all encompassing year one of Paramount Plus what does this look like for UFC fans and how do they feel about it are they happier than they were in the ESPN era does it really make any difference to them X Y and Z

the no pay per views everything that goes along with it I think that's crucial for of the sport this year. Similar to Ricks and the stars, mine was more of like the champions, the big names of the sport. Are we going to see them fight? There's so much in the air around

Ilya with these legal proceedings. Tom Aspinall with the eye. He's talking about potentially getting a second surgery. Are we even going to see him fight in 2026? Pantosia, I understand he's no longer the champion anymore, but will we see him get a shot at a rematch with the broken arm? And then also the stars that go along with, it does John John fight, does Connor McGregor return to the Octagon?

Those are things that I want to see in 2026. And then lastly, what Eric said, PFL does this new sort of, you know, iteration of the promotion, going with lineal champions and not doing so heavy on the tournament format, going with real, you know, segregated weight classes as your champions. Does that give you any sort of momentum to try and become a viable number two in this space? Love them. I agree with all of them. I mean, all great stories. It's not necessarily an award here, but all great stories to watch. And yes, all great stories that we will watch and cover right here on the program.

What about you, Mr. P.C. Carroll, you've been foaming at the mouth, waiting. I can't wait for these, Pete. Yeah. No, they're all gone now, you know. What does it all gone mean? It's not a competition. It's not a competition. I want to be the first one to say it

I took that away from me and I deserve to be the person who says my things okay okay okay I have a voice too okay thank you um obviously the White House who's all said that yeah yeah I'm Paramount all said that great job um Ilya him individually

not the other guys what is gonna go on with him okay this is a great one I'm not finished all right I'm not finished no I did like me too thank you thank you JZ major MMA comes to Spain will they have a france-like impact on the sport we would be going oh my god the ufc or the pfl are going to madrid that's going to be great those people really like m-ma you know what i mean is that

going to happen finally prayer to heavyweight i think the iliad thing would a hear harder if arriel didn't you know sidebar that but you know they're my things what would you mean sidebar uh you just you know you're like oh rick that's a good one but i think is interesting is iliad deporia specifically. We're not giving out freaking gold stars here, all right? They're all good stories.

I wanted one. I wanted one. You had a couple. You had a couple. You saw about it. You saw about it. Sorry. Stuff.

When do you guys think we find out about the White House card? And do you think the announcement is an IG live? Honestly, I'm not even being facetious here. I think they make a big splash with it? The only reason I say that

is because of what they did for the first card with the NFL game. Like, I think, like, Trump announces it or something? I was going to say you also had the White House environment. Imagine that one. Yes. I can't imagine they're going to be like, yeah, dude, just pop on IG-Ly.

I think Trump might announce it. I'm Dana with it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think Trump might announce it whether he wanted to or not. Like, he just might say something that, like, come to like. I think he's going to be at a press conference. He's going to be like, wow. You guys hear, Connor McGregor's coming back?

Yeah, exactly. It's going to be in Air Force 1. Yeah, my birthday. Frank, Frank, Frank, Frank. You're, everyone's speaking at an eight. You're speaking. at like a four and it just sounds like you mumbling under your breath.

And then he sits in the control room when no one acknowledges him and he's like, all right. Right. And then I found $20. How about we all wait our turn? No way. Go Frank. Because you know what happens, Frank?

I'm driving home. I listen to it and all I hear is we need to listen to your speakers in your car. It's also, if I may say, the drops are a little low. Like I hear, I hear $30 million. And we're all speaking. We don't care. We're speaking.

Like, how could we get it more? That's one of my big fights, you know, to watch. Did we get the new car? No. You versus Frank? Who's the new car? No, not me versus Frank. Stories to watch, I should say, is can Frank figure out the levels?

Jesus. Can you figure out the levels? Trump is going to make the announcer that Connor is coming back on Air Force One. Just randomly talking to reporters. They're going to, oh, what else is going on? Oh, you know, Connor McGregor's coming back, huh? This is your prediction? I like it.

I actually like it. I'm glad that you finally gave me some attention. Wow. I mean, it's an offshoot of a prediction I just already put out there. But, yeah, it's pretty good. It's pretty good. By the way, have you seen the White House, the social media account? Like, they're posting memes left and right.

Oh, it's so good. It's one of the best social media accounts on this. It's terrific. No? You don't think it's funny? I just think it's kind of weird. Oh, yeah. It's coming from the White House.

If Theo Vaughn is checking you, like, on the official government accounts to be like, yeah, maybe go use me in your campaign. Theo Vaughn might be the wokenst of the mall. What are you talking about? Oh, Yelvon's woke now? All right, my bad. I didn't catch a memo. I should have consulted with these three of them.

Just added him to the group chat. Yeah, I should have consulted. I'm sorry, Pizzi, too. TV in the chat, baby. As soon as you mentioned, White House, this group just was like, Donald Trump, Zzz.

Fella goes sitting on that massage chairs. Frank, by the way, you bring up a great point. Do you have, like, if you want to interject, do you have a fight to watch? I think you've had your moment, man. No, I just want to have it.

No, no, it's fine. It's fine. Wow. There it is. It's going off right now. I actually. Ariel versus Frank. Frank, your fight to watch.

Is this right here, Ariel and Frank? Let's see where it goes. Oh, man. Seriously, seriously. No, I don't have one now. Wow. Breakout fighter? Nope.

Stop it. Let's move on to the next category. Can 26 Dakota be the equivalent of a 2024-Dakota? Dakota versus Fatima Klein. You guys are, well, I can't believe you. Well, I think Rick's referring to when Frank had 24 Dakota Dichivas, the singular greatest run in MMA history. She was on a list of five.

And she was ranked? I don't remember. Like third or something? I think she was like two. I think she was like two. He almost walked her out. Remember that? I don't think it was almost.

That would have been incredible. It was on the table. I think we had Dakota pinned in a corner and we're like, hey, let mysterious Frank walk out with you. She's like, uh, yeah, sure, I guess. Then her manager hit me up. That ain't happening, bro. She's not really feeling it at the moment.

You know, she's really superstitious. He never asked me. Yeah. You don't like that? We're screaming in her face. Imagine Frank walking out with the American top team flag behind her. It'll be incredible. He'll wear a luchador mask and a trash bag over his clothes and then he'll walk out with the American top team flag.

Who's saying no? Who's saying no? Who's saying no? Evidently. Yeah. All right. So, Frank, nothing? Nothing.

All right. So, Rick, did everyone weigh in on this? Yeah, yeah, we did. Everyone weighed in. All right. How about that? Yeah, yeah. So those are our stories to watch a lot of them, if I'm being a lot of.

honest, but I think it's going to be a really interesting year in the sport. So let us see how it all plays out. We move along now to two very fun ones who are going to be our female and male fighters of the year. For this one, and I hope we all understood the assignment, you got to pick one, right? It can't be like five. It's essentially, who are you going to say was the male or female fighter of the year when we do the prediction, excuse me, the award show this time next year, 14th annual. How one he knows. You guys got that, right?

Let's look at last year's. Let's look at last year's picks. We'll start with Mr. New York Rick. His female fighter of the year, Valentina Shepchenko. Nailed it. Male fighter of the year, Alex Pereira. Okay. I mean, with.

Could have done better. I respect it. Mr. Pizzi. Mr. Pizzi. Oh, I don't know. Female fighter of the year. Kayla Harrison. Not a bad shout, not a bad shout, not a bad shout, only fought once, male fighter

of the year. Shavkat Rachmanov. It's tough. Yeah, that's tough. That's a fucking nightmare. It's tough. Yeah. Oh, we'll go to Mr. GC.

He didn't lose. He didn't lose. Which was a little bit controversial. Not controversial at all. Jean-Weilly. Y'all can clown me for this, but it was, it was for the fighter of the year. She wins in New York. it's over.

She went to New York, it's over. Male fighter of the year. Yeah. Tom Aspinall. Yeah. Close. My book. No, I don't think.

Second. I think even with a 30 second knockout of Ghana, he's not winning fighter of the year. He only fought once. If you would have fought twice, he'd be in the mix. Helwani. He'll kill that guy. Helwani. Female fighter of the year?

Kayla Harrison. Okay. Now, this did cause a bit of a bit of, a rift in my relationship with Julianne Pena. We all remember the text message that I received on Christmas morning. Yeah. I mean, you threw me right under the bus. Naturally.

Because I didn't, I didn't pick against it. She was very upset because she said, if you're picking Kayla, that means you don't think I'm beating Kayla. And I had to make a pick. I was right. I blatantly picked Kayla and I stuck with it. And I said she would. Peece, we know, please don't double down on this thing further.

You're the reason we got the text. Yes. 100%. There were some phrase. Okay. Journalism. I'm in church in my phone's buzz. I thought it was not about it.

What's that what journalism is? Yes, it is, Jamal. Yes, it is. Malefighter of the year. Oh. Marab de Wally-Hleelisheel. Close. Wow.

Let me close. He worked by malefighter of the year. Yours. I had Björ-Macher-Chev, man. I had Björ-Ean. Islamakashv fighter of the year so close. Those are both good shots. Yeah.

Those are good shots. He did very well. That's the best one. I'm pretty happy. Pizzi, why don't you go first? Uh-oh. Okay. So this is the thing.

Go with female, by the way. Go with female. Female. Just do female. No, we'll go female around. Okay, female first. All right, right, right. Kayla Harrison again, she's fighting Amanda Nunes.

She beats her. She's voted to year. Wow. Just one fight. That's all it needs if you're that good, you know what I mean? All right, no, I'm cool with it. She can conceivably fight again, no? 100%.

She's going to beat the greatest female fighter of all time. But is your prediction, is your prediction that she is only fighting once? Or are you saying? No, no. My prediction is she is going to be the female fighter of the year in 2026, I mean. Okay. Now I'm asking. It's so hard.

This bit has lasted 90 minutes and it's driving me up a wall. Can we have a serious conversation? Is Kayla Harrison going to fight more than once next year? Yes. Okay. And she is going to win all her fights and then become the female fighter of the year. Is that what you're saying? Correct.

That is what I think. I do. I think she's, I think, look, I think she was, if she had a fought one more time last year, she would have been in that conversation. So, yeah, look, she's fighting Amanda Nunes. It's either going to be her or Amanda Nunes. Oh, I pick Kayla.

I love the shout. I'll actually piggyback it. Actually, I lost my thing. Damn it. You're going with that. You're going with that. It's only one name. I feel like you could recall this.

Yeah, no, mine's Kayla Harrison. I lost my list. My female fighter of the year is Kayla Harrison. I'll tell you straight up, I think she'll win in January, and then this might steal my thunder later, but I think she'll win on the White House card, and then I think potentially she'll walk away. and that will make her the female fighter of the year. I think she'll get, she has to be on the white house card.

Who is she fighting on the White House card? Well, first of all, if she beats Amanda Nunes, she has to be on the White House card, right? Yeah. Two-time Olympic gold medalist. You can have potentially- She did the whole Trump visit. Like, she did the White House card thing. Yes, 100%. So she has to be, and I don't think she has many more 135 pound weight cuts left in her.

And I don't honestly think after a year like that, she'll have anything left to prove in her athletic career. And so I think after those. that's the thing like valentina what's soybork's contract like oh god I would love it I don't think they're letting her leave I know I don't think they're letting her leave like right now

135 um who is even women's bantamate there's Pena Peniton it's probably gonna be Norma Dumont right Norma Dumont really she's right there I mean she's won like a whole bunch of North

for the White House card though I feel like it's gonna be Valencian for that it could be Valentina you don't need to make that fight for the White House card you don't need to I think just having Kayla as an Olympic gold medalist is enough. Doesn't it doesn't hurt. Anyway, Kayla Harrison, my pick

once again for Female Fighter of the Year Mr. New York, Rick. Kayla Harrison. Okay, there it is. So we all suspect she's going to have a big year. Is it four for four, Mr. G.C.? Four for four, Kayla Harrison, I say she beats Menon and Nunez, and then she fights Valentina Shevchenko on the White House card. She defeats her

as well this year's Female Fighter of the Year and becomes 2026's female fighter of the year. I will say I think the most surprising part of this is all of us picking against Amanda Nunes like unanimously. Not that I look, I agree with you. I'm in it. Those fighting words.

But Amanda Nunes. Why, 2.05? Those drops feel a little loud. No, I like that. I like that. So what was it? Kayla minus 205, what's Amanda? Amanda Nunea is coming back your way.

Plus 170. Okay. By the way, can you look at the odds there? Can you look at the history? When's the last time Amanda Nunes was an underdog? I can tell you. Also, interesting tidbit. Cyborg, right? Probably. Over under, three and a half,

and it's minus 140 to the under. They're expecting a finish in that fight. Wow, wow, wow, wow, wow. Last time Amanda Nunez was an underdog. She has been a big favorite. Yeah, Cyborg, she was plus 175. That's a good shout by Rick. Okay.

What was that, 2019? Valentina Shevchenko, the second fight. She was a plus 125. Okay. Was Cyborg 2019? Yes. So that was the last time, right? That was the last time.

December 29, 2018. Oh, it was at the very end of the year heading into, yes, going into the new deal. We were around, some of us were around Kayla at the live show in Miami. She is so freaking jacked. And when she talks about like the violence in which she wants to, you know, inflict some ground and pound on Amanda, you're like, yeah, I can see this happening. But I'm not trying to, I mean, it's Amanda freaking Nunes. Yeah. Amanda's been out a long time.

She's been out a long time. Kayla has done a fantastic job. selling this fight. You know who did the best job, though. Oriamazvedal killed him. Nobody's more excited for this fight than Oriamazvedal, and he absolutely put it over big time. You know, you've made your point clear on who

you think should be headlining this card. This is the fight I care about the most by a million miles for this upcoming card. Also, just a crazy stat here looking at Amanda Nunez as an underdog. Plus 235 against Sarah McMahon. Wow. You have to understand Amanda Nunes was not

Amanda Nunes at some point. 100% back then. No doubt, no doubt. But it's just like, man. That's like Bitcoin in 2011. Yeah, yeah. No, the Amanda Nuna's stock went through the roof. That was great life.

It was not the same back then. All right. So we all agree on who the female fighter of the year will be. G.C., you go first, male fighter of the year. All right, my male fighter of the year. I'm going to go with Rick's breakout fighter of the year from last year. I'm going to go with Hamzat Shemaya. I think we get two fights here.

But I think one of the. them is up at light heavyweight. Wow. I think he goes for the double champ status and he's successful and becomes male fighter the year. Wow. Okay, let me look real quick. When's the last time? Is the last time 2020, the last time he fought more than once? Wow. I'm trusting because the way things line up, August will get like in April and an October. And he can go into the U.S. Also, we've proven that he can go into the U.S. also the fact that he's an active champion now. I'm hoping that means he'll be fighting more. Also, like we talk about odds. He is minus 350.

to retain his UFC middleweight belt, he's minus 150 to be the UFC light heavyweight champion at the end of 2026. That seems crazy to me. So you're saying you hope that he moves up, who do you think he'll be fighting? Let's just play it out. He retains the middleweight title,

he moves up to light heavyweight. Who's he fighting? Yeri? Imagine Yeri versus. Yerra Oshka, yeah. Or is it Carlos Hulberg? After beating Carlos Olberg. Is it possible it's Alex Perea?

Imagine that world. That's also a huge one. But I don't think so either. Prayer is long gone. I think so. I think he goes up to 265. Well, if it's Oldberg against Yuri,

why would Alex even be in the division? You say interim, he comes back, they do a super fight. I still don't understand this interim. Or we're saying that Alex potentially stays at 205

and he can go out to heavy way. But why are they doing an interim then? Who the fuck knows? Why are they doing an interim for Patty versus Justin? Because I'll be out forever. Yeah, so Alex says I'm in love

and I'm going to travel the world and I'll see you guys in August. Oh, my God. I'm going to France and T.C. I just say shaman. He'd just be like... I don't get where the interim part is... Who knows?

None of it makes sense. None of it makes sense. We're getting into semantics here, guys. Come on. All right, PT. Male fighter. Mail fighter. I'm with G.C.

I thought I was going to be on an island here. All right. No, well, you know what it is? The U.S. thing is very important for me. I think I held him back for a large portion of his career. And we're going to find out if that's the case. Either he doesn't want to fight or he's been using this as an excuse. Let's find out which one it is.

Yep. All right. Is it three for three? Rick? No. No. Wow. Surprising. I'm interested. I know. I'm shocked that everybody's so on the outside train and I'm the one

happen. I just don't think he'll have the level of activity. Unfortunately, I predict Alex Pereira. I think if Alex Perrera can line up two wins, especially one of them being like a John Jones, it would be monumental compared to what everybody else has lined up. I don't think there's many big fights out there to be had, if I'm being honest. I just think it's going to be a down year in terms of big opportunity. and John Jones to me feels like the biggest one if Alex can get that fight and win it

and then God forbid if he gets a winner of Cyril gone and Tom Aspinall takes them out like we're talking next level he's my goat put right it in stone so yeah I'm predicting a big year for Alex There's one thing I learned about the fighter of the year award

it's that activity rules the day Ultimately I think when I'm trying to predict who's going to be the fighter of the year I think of who is going to be the most active and I think Joshua Van is going to be the most active and so I say Joshua Van will be the 26 male fighter of the year. Yeah. Holy shit. Why, why, why? So you think he has a high level of activity and retains the bell. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. I mean, you got to go on the limb. The problem is that's true. I just don't know if the other guys are going to fight more than once. You know,

they, they tend to fight once or twice. I'm trying to, that's honestly why I picked Marab last year. He was starting off the year. I know Van just fought, but, you know, he's ready to go. We knew he was going to start the year off, and we knew he wanted to be active, and he ended up getting four fights in. Last one he lost, but still won the award, in my opinion. I think Van will get two to three. He wants, he has said it himself.

He wants to be active. And, you know, it's always tough with that because then you start getting into, like, the granular details and say, like, so you think he's going to win? I don't know. Ultimately, I think he remains the most active. and I think he gets the most title defenses in and I think he wins that award. I like the risk. I like the going out on a little. Yeah, why not. So there you have it. Male, female fighter of the year, our picks. We shall move along now and go to a bit of a fun game here.

Let's talk about who we think, as we're talking about title defenses. Who do we think, guys, is going to actually, how many new champions do we we think there will be in the UFC. I remind you that, as I said on Monday's show, there were 11 title changes this past year that includes three vacant titles won by McKenzie Duran Ilya and Alex Volcanovsky. The combined record of champions in 2025, nine and eight, one no contest.

One no contest, also currently no male undisputed UFC champion has an active title defense on their resume. We'll talk about what we said last year regarding the new champions. Eric said that there would be four new champions. Connor said there would be seven new champions. Pizzi said there would be six. Ariel said there would be five.

In the end, in the end, I say title changes. I don't know even if I have the, do we even have it listed? Well, we could just look at it. Who's to check? We probably should have done this before. Joshua Van won. Yep. Peter Yan, two.

Yep. Microphone got to be on. Yeah, yeah, too. So are we counting vacant title fights? Yes. Like, is Volkinovsky a three? Yes. Okay, Volcanovsky 3.

Yep. Iliate Toporia of 4. Yep. Islam Mahatchev, five. Jack Della, six. Yeah. See, that's the thing that tricks me. When I'm doing this in my head, I just think of what division will have a new champion.

Right. All right. Hamzat 7? Yep. Wait, Jack Della 6. Yeah, he beat Balal. No, no, no.

At the end of the year. So he doesn't count. Islam is the one that counts for that. So that's five. Oh, I guess we're talking about title changes? Yeah, we're only talking about new champions. Okay. Thank you.

Yeah, that's what I do. Hamzaat is 6. Yep. Hamza is 6. Pereira doesn't count, even though there was a change, he ended up being... He got it back. Yeah. So that doesn't count.

Okay. Aspinol? He went from interim to heavyweight. Count? Yeah. Yes. Seven. John was the champion last year.

Yep. Seven. McKenzie Duren. Eight. Valentina wasn't. No. Yes, she was the champ going in. Kayla was.

Kela Harrison, nine. Nine. So put that graphic up again? That's crazy. Fair play, G. So none of us were. No. Yeah, wow.

Connor was by far the closest. Yeah. Connor 7. Can I just say. Eric 4 PT 6. Yep. Give myself the old tap on the back here. I went back to my old one while I was doing the new one.

And I just, I know I'm not right. Okay. I know this isn't exactly right, but the detail here is just amazing. What do you mean? What do you mean? I say to Jordan in the document, there will be six new champions. Marab, Balal, Drickus Duplessi, Jones, Zang, and Penna will lose their belt.

Wow. Wow. That's not bad. Say it again. Say it again. Say it again. Six new champions. Marab, Bilal, DDP, Jones, Zhang, and Peña will lose their belts.

Whoa, Marab, yes. All of them. All of them. All of them. All of them. Wow, D.D.B. Jones. Wow. Wow. Wow. Pretty good, Pete.

Wow. Not bad. Yeah. Okay, I like this. I like this. I like this. Impressive. Yeah, very good. Okay, so as far as this year is concerned, and again, we're not talking about title changes. We're talking about how many divisions will have a new champion this time next year. Obviously, we know that the current champions are as follows.

Joshua Van Flyweight, Peter Yan Bantamweight, Alex Volcanowski featherweight, Ilya Taboria lightweight, Islamachev Walterweight, Hamza Chimaeimai of middleweight, Alex Pereira light heavyweight, Tom Aspinall heavyweight, McKenzie Durence straw weight, Valentina Shepchenko, flyweight, and Kayla Harrison, women's bantam weight. We know there's an interim title fight coming up. We know there's a women's bantamweight title fight coming up. We know there's a men's featherweight title fight coming up. And we are not talking about BMFs, right? No, we're not talking.

Of course not. G.C. You go first. I'm actually going to stick with my number from last year. I think we'll have less than 2025, but I'm going to stick with seven. Okay. Pizza, you go next. Well, I'm going to be very specific once again. I like that.

Do it. I like that. There will be five new champions. Joshua Van will lose his belt. McKenzie Darren will lose his belt, her belt, excuse me. Piotrion will lose his belt. Alex Pereira will lose his belt. Ilya Toporio will lose his belt.

Wow. That's the five. By the way. Fucking out. Are they all, shout out, are they all going to lose their belt in a fight or are they going to have it taken away? Like, well, Alex Perra, when you say he loses his belt, does he lose it in a fight or is he stripped? Is he vacating? What is he doing?

The language was chosen very specifically. Ah, okay. All right, listen. I like that. I'm just, can I ask a follow up or are we, like, are we not allowed to? No comment. Peezy's prickly today. It's a lot.

Prickly, Pete's. Is everything okay, Pizzi? Could be better. All right, all right, all right. Rick? I'm going to be even more specific than Pizzi. I'm going to tell you who's going to be the champion. Wow.

I'm going to tell you they're going to lose too. Amazing. Well, how many total? Six. Okay. Six total for me. The new champions are going to be, Magamette on Kalev will be the light heavyweight champion by the end of the year.

Okay. Armin Saruki and will be the lightweight champion. Crazy thought, by the way, that they're going to give him another title shot. He's going to be. oldberg or Yuri Yeah Armin Sarukian's

going to be Lightweight champion Mavsar Evluev is going to be the featherweight champion Wow Morob de Valishvili is going to be

the Bantamway champion again Alashandre Pantosia is going to be the flyweight champion again Wow and Zhang Wei is going to be the strawweight champion again The other champions retain So that's seven?

Six. Six? You had six? How many did Connor have? Seven. PTCF 5. 6.7? 6.7. There it is.

Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. So I'd like to, can I make an alteration? Uh-oh. Yes. I don't want to have the same as you guys. I had six. You had six. He had seven. I'll go with eight. You're going up. I'd like to go up. Yeah. So 5, 6, 7, 8. Yeah. I think one of us nails it. I think one of us gets it. Yeah, it's no fun having the same. I'll go with eight. If nine are again, that would be insane. That would be absolutely insane.

I think this was a very specific year in terms of the Ilya Islam both moving up and changing. That altered things quite a bit. Then at the end of the year, you get the random Pantosia injury. Not that Josh Vain couldn't have won that fight too, but it was such an odd year. Oh, and Zhang going up. The whole thing was very odd last year. I wonder what's the most amount for a calendar year. That's got to be, right?

Yeah, I don't know. Did we know? And I think if you're talking about like Ann News, wasn't it like 12? I think it was 11. 11? Yeah, because our list you would have added in Magamed and Jack and Alex. But Alex has already counted as one. So yeah, just Magamette and Jack.

So let's see. All right, 5, 6, 7, 8. I want to play a fun game with you guys now. It's a bit of a curveball. This is a good old-fashioned game of true or false. I love it. Just like the old days. Just like the old days, all right?

Is someone going to write these down? What should we do? Should I write them down? You can... Frank, let me. You can go back to him when you rewatch in 2027. Yeah, but then I have to write that. Yeah, fair enough.

I can't read, nor can I write, Pizzi. Come on. Frank, you getting louder? Okay. Yeah. This is what it's going to be. This is what it's going to be. I'm going to say a statement, like an absolute statement.

Yep. And then we'll just go quickly around the horn, but it'll be the same order every time. One word, true or false? Pizzi, Rick. G.C. Every time. P.T. Rick G.C. Because I don't want to hear it anymore from this guy. He's doing my head in, as they say. All right? P.T. Rick and G.C. All right? You got it?

Francis and Ganoe will fight for the PFL this year. False. True. False. Wow. Are you going? No, no. I'm the moderator here. I'm the moderator here. I love to have that answer. Do you want me to be involved?

Yes. I thought it was implied. You were. You go at the end, right? after a G.C. you go. Okay. The problem is everyone thinks that I have intel when I'm, and I don't necessarily. Oh, yeah, you don't have any of that. Why would they?

You don't have any of that. Okay. Looking forward to the bold prediction section. I'll see what he picked last year. Connor McGregor's next fight will be at the White House. True. False. True.

Really false. I don't believe Connor's coming back. You don't believe he's ever fighting. Oh. Oh, now you fucking say it. There's too much time between now and then. Yeah, I don't buy it. Wow.

Connor McGregor will fight twice this year. False. False. False. Yeah, false. The reason I picked twice was there's two fights left on his deal. So does he get one in in June and then get one in December? And then he becomes a free agent.

Could you imagine we're starting next year with him as a free agent? Yeah. Yes. All right. True. Oh, no. False. Frank.

Tom Aspinall will return before July. True. Oh, man. True. False. True. Ilya will fight twice or more. False.

False. true true and twice counts yeah twice or more yeah yeah oh one and a half I'm gonna do an extra one I'm gonna do an extra one

I'm gonna do an extra one I'll yeah Teporia won't fight this year I'm closer on that one we're doing a true or false this is an official one no I'm closer it's either true

false false false Frank we get any like who wants to be a millionaire music I feel like there's a lot of tension in the room right now atmospheric come on

You don't have that at the ready? Can we all get along? Who said that, by the way? Is this like... Rodney King? We're doing like news drops now? I thought they were all... Rodney King?

Is he the guy that the police kick the show out? LA riots, yeah. Play that again? Fucking hell. Let me hear? It's a bit dark. Can we all get along? That feels weird.

Mike, that is fucking mental. Is that him at like an emotional press conference? Oh, it's a massive emotion. He got, he was beat up on camera by the LAPD and at a press conference. and it led to the L.A. riots. I'm a fan of the way. Get them out of the group.

Andy, get them out. Dard. Get them out. I don't know about this one, Frank. Yeah, Frank. Also, you kind of like went off on your own on this one. We usually talk about it. Actually, you played it earlier in the show and I was like, what the fuck was that?

I know. Frank, did you just. Should we apologize to everyone? Should we apologize to us? We were really angry with each other. I thought it might be nice to hear old Rodney. What's next? Get along.

Rodney, what are we doing? Frank, what are we doing here? That's fucking crazy, Frank. What the fuck? This is like a massive moment in American history. I didn't know what that was for everyone watching at home. Can I only apologize on the other than the Ariolani show? All of us are absolutely disclosed.

I'm trying to get us canceled here, Frank. I'm surprised when we were doing fights we must see, didn't it? The I have a dream drop. Yeah. We're not allowed to use that one. Jeez. You guys are going to start dropping Malcolm X on us, too? Like, what is going on?

My favorite part of all this? Actually, no, what is this? No, no. Why were you like, I got to get this Rodney King drop in the show. What the fuck he is this? My favorite part of all this is there's so many times that there's a plead with Frank to be like, Frank, we love you, we want you more of all, take some initiative. Like, do something. Then he does it and everybody's like, what the fuck?

By the way, he's like, I did this one so everybody would get along and stuff. He has the peace and love drop just at the ready. He's like, no, I need Rodney King fighting through tears at his press conference. It's an important part of American history. Wow. When did you decide to do this?

You were on Reddit one day and it popped up. Arguing? Wait a second. HR need a shot here. Frank, you did this mid-show? Fucking prison. Wow.

Alex Pantosia will end the year UFC Flyway championship. True. True. True. Yeah, now you're fucked. You're in a contradiction spy. You know what this is called? This is called hedging your bet. True. That's fair. You can do that.

Interesting. Weird how Josh Fenton's going to win there is later. Listen. No, Marab. Marab lost. Yeah, yeah. It's going to be the same. That close. Alex Pereira will fight for the heavyweight title. The undisputed heavyweight title.

title. We'll fight for the heavyweight title. True. I'm going to say false, but I wanted to say true. False. False. Ilya will fight before July. False. Wow. Hey, can I go? Can I go for us? There's an order here, all right? False. True. You kind of look at the schedule. Like, is he going to fight in Miami and April, and then there's the main

I'll say false Marab versus Jan 3 will happen this year True True True Uh true True

Jan's next fight will be against Marab False False False False True PFL will resign with ESPN False

False False. False. Armand Sarukian will fight for the lightweight title this year. True. True. True. Late. True. Endrum.

Sorry. Another BMF title in another division will be introduced. Oh, fuck. Who gives a fuck? Yeah, fuck. Just give it to me. Who's it true? I did.

Oh, wow. What the fuck? They're going to find something to the headline. False, I hope. They're going to have six title fights on the White House, and they're going to be like, July, we got your women's strawway BMF title on the line, Angela Hill versus Amanda Lemo.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So you're saying true, Pizzi, you're saying what? False. False. Who's saying false? Both of us. Okay, I'll say false, too. Just because I don't want it.

The GFL will hold an event this year. False. False? Frank Hit the music False Can we boy the music Did Frank just say what music

He was doing Another Rodney King drop So he couldn't get to it He's looking up the OJ If it does not It must have quit Drop I'm gonna go with false

False false Can we boy the music aerial I think we bought it I think we bought it I think we own it I think we own it Next Fiji

do the hand Do the hand, do the hand. It is amazing. It's incredible. The wrist flexibility. But are you even filthy? Oh, and also he could put his leg over his head. Peaches.

Not anymore. It's not worth 75 kilos days. Okay. Around 90 now. No way. What's that in pounds? I've never heard this part. I didn't know that it was the actual bars.

Bro, you haven't listened to the whole thing. No, I don't know. All right. Sounds like this fight. Cep of the music. Hate it. Islam. Chachev will fight more than once this year.

True, true, true. False. Rico Verhoeven will fight in the UFC this year. False. True, true. True. Drikas duplice will fight for the middleweight title this year. False.

False. False. False. Ronda Rousey will compete in a pro-MMA fight this year. False. True. False. True. Yeah, baby.

Ronda Rousey versus Gina Carano will happen this year. Inboxing, true. True. True. Wait. Oh, so it's in boxing, okay. But I don't think in boxing. Why would it be in boxing?

Well, G.C. said no, she won't fight in M.MA and then said yes. She will fight Gina Carano. So I'm sitting on the fence, baby. And then one for fun, and I know it's not technically, but we cover, Jake Paul will fight this year. Hmm. False. false false

I say true but like fourth quarter yeah it makes sense all right that was fun guys I like that da da da da da da da da da da now which of those did you already know

honestly not a lot I mean how am I going to know what Islam's doing or a lot of these ones with the time frame it's a bold prediction one it's the bold prediction one you gotta watch your book I literally get out the no pad when Ariel starts to the bold prediction yeah now yeah so all right

So, there you go. What I was going to do. Fun little game of TRF. You know, back in the day, we used to play Truth or Dare. That was always a fun one, right, Frank? We used to play Truth or Dare. So much fun. Seven Minutes in Heaven?

Never play that one? Spin the bottle? I just watched a movie recently where they had to go, where, like, it was like a movie about high school kids, and they did seven minutes in heaven. It was so awkward to watch, and I was watching with my kids. What are your favorite show? Wonder Years. Wonder Years.

And they did it in there, yeah. Can I tell you something? Shout out. So do we like 90s callbacks? We love them. We love them, Frank. I did not have. That's better to run, you want to tell you.

The way you set that up is actually brilliant. You are so good. So much bullshit. You don't get told this enough. You are so good, Frank. I'm not just saying so good at your job. You're just so good, period. Joe, I can't stop thinking about it.

Wait, run that one more time? I did not. have at the record show can I just say something wonder years my favorite show of all time yeah good transition no because that's how he set it up and I did a thing for Syracuse recently where they asked me what's my favorite show of all time wonder years you know who else's favorite show of all time was Wonder Years

Adam Sandler no no no this is more of a serious note our good friend Abby and every time I would mention Wonder Years and even that video he would write to me so it made me think of of him. Hopefully he's watching and made me think of Abby because he loved the Wonder Years too and anytime I would mention it on the show or in that video that came out in like early December. So Wonder Years

made me think of Abby and it is a great show by the way. I feel like you guys haven't seen the Wonder Years. I have seen it but it was not part of my like, like I've seen it must have been on Nick at night or like old school but it wasn't part of my regular I thought I'd be like cool stuff like it's crazy. No, no no no no no no. Frank you

must have seen the Wonder Years. I watched the Wonder Years. I watched the Wonder G.C. was in his father's. Not legit. I've never even... Never even seen it. I'm learning about this for the first. Serious. Fred Savage? Older brother, Ben Savage? Marilyn Manson is not true. Hey, listen, G.C. Between me and you?

You remember that was the rumor, right? No, I literally was in my father's nut side. It looks like it ended in 1993 the year I was born. Oh, yeah. You were actually... It finally applies. Actually, like, I want to find out what the last air date was of the very last episode. We haven't talked enough about Ariel at the top of the show doing, like, where everybody was. And after Father's Nutsack, he ran out of things to say.

So he just started freestyling. Like, he only had Father's Nutsack loaded up. And after he'd ran that one, Frank, somehow younger than me, like, the whole thing just went off the rails. Literally, this is actually perfect. The season, the series finale aired May 12th, 1993. I was born July 16th. It's the first time that I could actually. really applies.

Her son of it actually applies. Wow, wow. Can I tell you something? And I pray to God they don't hear this. My kids still kind of think, at least the youngest ones, but for the whole time, they think that kids come from vitamins. Sorry, what? So, like, our story was, our story was, like, the girl takes a vitamin, and that's how

the kid comes. I mean, there'll be no oldest children born ever. This is like, this is, so my son, when he was a kid, he'd be like, you took a vitamin and Walter came, you know what I mean? So we were talking recently like, oh, who takes the vitamin? Take a vitamin? The mom. The mom takes the vitamin.

Yeah. And there's the kid. And the belly grows. I'm going to call it the vitamin. That's what we say. Give it a vitamin. So we were talking actually a couple days ago. Pizzi's giving out all kinds of vitamins.

Should mama take another vitamin? Because like my daughter was saying, oh, I wish I had a sister. I wish there was another, like, uh, might be a little bit too late for the vitamin. believe this. We're thinking about number four. I don't still believe this, Ariel. I'm sorry, mate. They don't. The youngest. The youngest, the youngest. The nine-year-old, maybe.

So anyway, I was thinking... Oh, vitamin D, huh? That would be the vitamin. That's fucking illegal. That's not. That's, why do you have to... That's great, Rick. I don't even know.

I did not have... Yeah. I don't even know. I'm thinking about Guatro, though, eh? So the, the story is, if we didn't get the dog during the pandemic, I think for sure we would have had... Somebody would have had a vitamin. Okay.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But the dog ended up becoming such a big, and I love the dog. I told you yesterday. Now, where do dogs come from? Is there vitamins? Storks. Heaven, heaven, heaven. No, they go to heaven.

I don't know where dogs come from. I guess the mama dog has a vitamin, yeah. Can I give you the Irish version of this? Some of my mom I told me, like, you know, what's going on here when I was before or whatever? She was like, you just have to pray really hard, and then, you know, you get a baby. So I used to be in the church looking at my dad. me my praying. I hope that I'm fucking getting in the road with you.

I'm up there and fucking praying for what I think they're praying for because I'm the baby and I want to keep it that way. But I ask them as well. You didn't want a brother or sister? Hell no. You were an only child, pizza? No. No, older brother.

I wanted to be the youngest, you know what I'm saying? Took enough beatings. Didn't want a younger one. Is the equivalent of that like Jacqueline takes a multivitamin and they're looking over like it's at the one? Oh, no, no. Is that the one? I don't think they're monitoring her vitamin intake.

But that's just the story. Wait, you guys don't have a story? No, my parents told me it was funny. No, no, no. Like now, as parents. Federal fucking prison. Your kids don't ask you where do babies come from? Yeah, we tell them.

Yeah, right. I don't believe that. I don't believe that. So where do babies come from? Fucking, Rick. I don't believe that for a second. Listen up, Rick, if the socks on the door don't come and knocking. Are these prenatal vitamins?

I want to say a story, but I feel like we've gone too far. So I'm not going to say. Okay, I'll just say this. Was it the Rodney King? When did we? We were safer on Rodney King. So my son is getting to, he's getting, he's 13 now. So I don't know what's going on.

Uh-oh. He said in the car, he goes, I remember one night. Oh, no. He said in the car, I remember one night, I saw, he calls us, Mama and Dad, I saw them dancing. Oh! Some vitamins, eh? And then Claire popped out shortly thereafter. And I was like, wait, what?

What did you just say? I've never heard him tell this story. And he said it so nonchalantly in the bag of the guy. He's like, I remember one night I saw them dancing. I was like, what are you talking about? Did your blood run cold on the wheel? I was. Nah, he G-rated that for you.

100%. But I was like, what kind of memory is he talking about here? Is this a real thing? Like, were we actually? He followed it up with and then Claire came? Yeah. Oh, man. But in his mind, is it?

Actually, like, he saw his dancing, or is he? I don't know. I think we know what he means. A cell mom and dad and knock him. Therapy now. Let's go to our story. Bold prediction. Bold prediction, my guys.

I don't think we could, like, I'm still recovering. If I'm being honest. There's a lot that happens. Number four. The vitamins, the whole thing. What age did he tell you the dancing part? Age? He said it during our holiday break a week ago.

He knows what he says. He knows what he's saying. He knows what he's saying. He was watching He was watching your face He literally just said it And I was like What just happened?

The sex What is that Frank? That one's a real one What is that? Bala Bilal Mahalo

Have seen files without the sex Frank Frank do you have the sex The sex Frank Do you have like a whole Like treasure troves me? This one is forced

Tomorrow This one is so apropos This one is a boys in the back Okay wow He gave us a little sneak peek It was too perfect That is amazing.

Okay, bold prediction, guys. Pizzi, you go first. Well, it's a bold prediction, right? You know, like, you know, I'm going to already imagine people going, the White House event doesn't happen. Whoa. Holy shit. It is, oh, you just, that actually is a bold prediction.

I thought you were going to set up like the White House event is going down. Ah, fucking you want a bold prediction. I'm your guy. Really? Holy shit. Do you really believe this? Or are you just trying to go out on a limb? It's a bold prediction.

Do you really believe this? No, I believe all my bold predictions. It's a very, has a slim possibility of happening. Wow. And I think, you know, look, okay, what was the most anticipated thing for MMA fans going into- John versus Tom? What happened? Didn't happen.

Your 100%. Listen. What was 2024? John. Vonne McGregor returning. Same fucking thing. Tom v. John didn't happen. 223.

23. Tom versus John as well. Conner versus... It was in Ganu v. Jones. Didn't happen. Wow. There's a common denominator here. The things we most want do not happen.

Crow Park didn't happen. Cowboy Stadium didn't happen. Oh, and guess what? The leader of the free world lives in that fucking house, boys. Okay? So if there's any state of emergency, if there's any global issue,

you can't be just going, oh yeah, what are you doing? Oh, we have a UFC event. We're going to do the press conference tomorrow. Okay? After Connor and Chandler fight, I will answer questions about us invading Greenland and them fighting back potentially

you know there's a massive there's a massive things that can happen here you're right you're honestly right you're right that what journalism is I gotta say that was a very compelling case that was a great case that was a very compelling case good shout with the invading Greenland

you really are on the woke front bench yeah no thank you he's not happy about it's a disgrace by the way it's actually a great shout we are kind of taken to forget I actually thought GC might say this to be honest because you were this was my exact take in September. Yeah, yeah.

You're welcome, wow. You're welcome. Wow. Yeah, pizza ticket. Do you have any others? No. I think that was pretty bold.

I'll take that. I feel like the name of the category is one bold prediction. Yeah, I mean, for all of ours, we've had multiple, but fine. If you would have said, I cannot wait for Ariel. By the way, if you would have followed up your no

with a laugh, it would have sounded very, very, very familiar. That one. Rick, why don't you go next? Is that Rodney King? Rick. This one I also I'm caveatting like Pizzi

It's possible It's not my It's not my likeliest outcome But I believe this to be true And could happen Gable Steven UFC champion By the end of 2026

Wow Wow Holy smokes You win one on the White House They look around the desolate Heavyweight division And you throw them in there With the champ and he gets it done

Gable Steven UFC champion end of 20, by the end of 20. I thought your bold prediction was going to be Gabel Stevenson fights in the UFC or Dave. That's, wow, that's for sure happening. Yeah.

Wow. Champion. How does it even happen? Like, can you give us? Hey, did we go through what our bold predictions were for last year? Oh, yeah. Did I not do that? Geez, I was so excited.

Should we, let's do that at the end. Yeah, I don't want to go to the. But yes, it happens with White House win over God knows who. And then they just go, we've got a 25-year-old stud. We've got nothing going on in this division. It's desolate. throw them in there. Let's just do this and start the train. Make them champion now and let's just get this going.

Because, man, you hear Joe Rogan talking about him. You hear Dana White talking about how interested they are in him. You could do a lot worse than going, let's make this 25-year-old stud our future. Brock-esque. It's Brock. It's Brock 2.0. Any honorable mentions? No, that was it. I just went out with that one.

G.C. Yeah, mine doesn't appear so bold next to these two right now. mine is that Connor McGregor does fight in 2026 and it will be at the White House. This is not bold. I mean, there's nothing bold about this. No, I'm kidding. It's a fought in four years. I'm kidding. Even I think that will happen. Petez you just said the White House isn't happening.

I see it. I see it. My one last year was right, so I'm okay with this one being blind. Well, what was your one last year? No, no, we'll get to it. Okay, I mean, he's teasing. Sorry, it's your turn. Isn't Ariel, go ahead. Let me, let me reset real quickly here. Conner's last year, you actually said multiple double champ attempts

so please expand on that what did you mean by that that's what I'm reading here you said that there will be multiple double champs meaning Ilya and Islam yeah and also Zhang Zhang you're right okay yeah nailed it Petezies was John Jones will be stripped of the heavyweight title

it's not very much happened to ask me yeah was stripped or did he vacate we actually had the conversation at the time with this boldness and I'll tell you why it was bold because all of you motherfuckers were like full of hope that Tom Aspin and him would happen. So that was why it was bold. Sorry.

When you say all, I just want to be clear. You don't mean me, obviously. Because I mean you. Did not think. Mr. New York Rick said there would be rumblings of a Francis and Gunn who returned to the UFC. And quite frankly, I think that's fair. I get a little bit of credit for that one.

That's fair. A little bit of credit, yeah. That's not bad. Is that a bold prediction? Are you fucking crazy? This bold, not bold. It's a prediction. And it's something that happens.

Francis, the guy that Dana White shits on every other day. And it became a thing towards the end. You know what's the shocker here? The one journal in the actual quartet got it wrong. What'd you do? What'd you say? I wanted to see PT's face when I said that, but we didn't. Yeah.

I only got the Maston Jones. Yeah. I wanted to see Pt's face. I said. I said the UFC would split up its broadcast deal, and they did not. So them's the brakes. Better look next year. What's this year? By the way, Masters in journalism from what school?

One that you don't know because you'll have to go, Syracuse. Go ahead, go ahead. Just tell us, just tell us. Just no need for a preamble. Independent colleges Dublin. They have a system through which you interned with the biggest paper in Ireland. What is the name of the school?

Independent colleges Dublin is the name of the school. Oh, the actual, oh, I thought you were talking about like a string of colleges or like a group of colleges that are independent in Dublin. The name of the school is independent colleges in Dublin. Pete Zee nailed the prediction on how you would react No, I'm just curious, is that a real thing or is it like an online thing? Wow. Yeah, it's an online thing, yeah, it is, yeah. Oh, okay, so. Are you devaluing online schooling? No, I just didn't know. Where did

you go? Are you'll tell us again there. University of Phoenix? Oh, okay, bold prediction. Here we go. Number one, I have multiple. Oh, shit, okay. Kayla Harrison will retire at the White House. She'll beat Amanda Nunes She'll beat whomever she fights And then she'll retire Number two PFL will not resign with ESPN

Okay Number three And please Hold your applause Tom Aspinall and John Jones Will not fight He's bold Where's the bold

That's bold That's bold There's no bold There wasn't any bold The Kayla retiring is decent The last two are not bold in their animation And I got another bold one for you Connor McGregor

We'll fight at the White House I love it That's a bold That's a bold one I feel like Again I like the Kala We just need to return to the beginning of the show

Where as I said There's only one of us who actually follows instruction What are you talking about Now I'm going to add PTC These are my honorables My bold was the Kayla And then I gave you some of Pitchie's back in. Pitchie's back in for following instructions.

Everybody else does not know how to follow instruction. That's okay. I will be the guy to go out of here with this. It's obvious Connor McGregor is going to fight in 2026. The guy hasn't fought in four and a half years. He literally has to fight. Something always comes up. Yeah, he has to fight.

He's had to fight the last four and a half years. No, he has to fight you now more than ever. We'll see if he really fights. Now you're doubting your own. My bold prediction, Connor McGregor doesn't fight in 2026. There you go. How's that? How's that?

Which one's, by the way, which one's more bold in your opinion? What's crazy? The fight is more bold because he hasn't fought in four years. No. I'm walking around. What is it? What is it? Oh, no, no, no.

Four and a half. Four and a half, yeah, yeah. I'm walking around New York City and I'm seeing ads for Paramount Plus, and it's Connor McGregor on the cover. It is amazing that they chose him. I mean, it makes sense. Almost a half decade at this point. And by the way, that is somewhat of a tell-tale sign, or maybe not.

Would they use him as part of the ad campaign if they didn't know of some? something to come or are they just using 1,000% We have gotten to the point where we had a poster, a date, a venue, everything for UFC 3.

No, that was going to happen. That one I believe was going to happen. And it didn't. This one's not announced just yet. By the way, that's the only reason

I said false when we talked about it is it's not because I don't think the intention is for Connor McGregor to fight. It is too far away. It is just too far away too much can happen.

At this point, it's not that far away. It's June. It's pretty far. We're five months away. It's a lot of time. Yeah, I just, I think, listen, like, he needs to fight now. More than 18.

What do you mean by that? Because it's a catalyst for all of his other businesses. He also has negative headline after negative headline after negative headline. If he fights now, the PR he gets on Fight Week and the brand awareness he gets for all of his enterprises is absolutely huge. It's the biggest week for all of his businesses when he fights, if he can get to that moment. And I think that's why it's so important now. Like, you look at the reports from November this year. He's lost 10 million on his stout.

he's been pulled from shelves all over the UK and Ireland. He needs this more than ever. I honestly believe that. He needs it more than he did last September when he pulled out before that press conference. Like it is, there is no broken toe going to keep him. Which last September? What are you talking about? You mean the, the press conference? Yeah, yeah. You know that it was almost three years ago now.

That's crazy. But it's a completely different world he's in now. He needs this more than anything in the world. So I think he definitely will. Someone in the chat said these are, these are italics. takes not bold takes I mean I think Kayla retiring

Abel Stevenson No by the way I think you guys were bold I think we were all bold What are the chat people saying What's chat? What are you saying? Who the fuck is we?

The one that said the italics Yeah A lot of people saying McGregor never ever gonna fight again But that that is why I think Your take does kind of hold up as bold Is because that sentiment Is everywhere

Like that sentiment is everywhere That people do not believe He will ever come back So I accept that as a... I think he fights and it doesn't go well. That's a different... Oh, that's a different type of thing. You think if he fights Michael Chandler, it doesn't go well?

Doesn't go well. I think he beats the brakes off Michael. Do you guys think that if he fights on the White House card? This is all part of our look ahead, right? Do you guys think if he fights on the White House card that he is the main event? Oh, yeah, you can't put anybody over Connor. Really? No doubt.

Even if it's not a title fight? Who headlines over Connor? How many? Okay, I'm setting the line at three title. fights on the White House card over under there's your push there's your new weight class BMF welterweight McGregor channel great show yeah yeah I'm pushing and taking three middle weight you're saying what Rick I'm pushing and taking three I think three I'm going four I'm going over that was the option really really yeah how they have no second half of the

year I know the the cupboard will be completely empty how can you do a number to especially if you're doing two big shows in June You know what I mean? Especially. Well, you keep talking about that. I don't know if that's true. No, but I mean, they're going to do something in July. It's not like they're going to take two months off in between.

I don't think you can do, like I saw John Anick say that, and I'm just wondering how. It just doesn't seem possible. Do you guys think any main cards will air on CBS? This year? Yeah. Yeah, at least one or two. You think so? Yeah.

I think we get one. That might be another bowl prediction. I don't think we get one. I think you might get a sprinkle here, but I think the whole point of this deal, is to lead us to Paramount Plus. I mean, I guess, you know, there were fight night events back in the day on ESPN and Fox, but this deal is completely different. There's no pay-per-view.

Yeah. I think, I think one. A main card, a main card, like the main event is on CBS. It would be great, but I don't necessarily see it. I don't see it. Could be wrong. I could be wrong. Okay, so there it is, guys.

2026. Do you guys think 2025 was a good year for MMA? No. It wasn't like a blizzard. weren't great right I didn't think I think there was time I can remember I was talking to you guys about and I was like am I like have I just stopped liking MMA or have the events been really bad this year you know like um there was I honestly thought that the the event of the year was the easiest thing to pick this year because it was like a tussle between three of them and uh I don't know it just used to feel and maybe this is like

you know getting jaded or whatever I do think there's a there's a certain amount of that it just feel so far removed from back in the old days when you are waiting weeks upon weeks for these events to happen and you'd be frothing at them out waiting for them you know it's uh it's just a lot and i think it's just a completely different system they're operating with i still think there was good cards but i wouldn't be like well what a year at the end of it certainly not doesn't feel like there was a blockbuster of like a block you know yesterday when i was talking with that day like you bank ben one that was blockbuster right that felt like it didn't feel like i mean even crawford Connell, it was way bigger than anything the UFC actually did in terms of blockbuster.

I know the gates were gigantic and all that stuff, but it felt like everyone was watching. The two biggest fights that we were teased with were Tom versus John and Ilya versus Islam. And neither of them even got remotely off the ground. Like it wasn't happening. And so. So then my question is, is 2026 bigger? Yes. You think 2026 will feel bigger?

The White House card alone is that thing. Marvin incentive. I'm hoping so. I'm hoping. You said that one thing. like a you bank band, like a Jake Paul fight, like the White House is going to be that. The White House is going to be another.

And if McGregor comes back, it's huge. You guys, you guys think that we get a stadium show in America? No. No. No. Do you think we get any stadium shows? No. No. Damn. I wish we did, but I don't. Who would headline it? I mean, again, Ilya and Spain, you know. When's Ilya fighting? A UK guy. Can a

UK guy get a stadium show? If Patty Patty versus Ilya. If Patty won in January, it will later this, this month, you could definitely, like, you could... Patty versus Ilya in a stadium in the middle of... Patty at Anfield would be insane. Yeah. Can't do it.

You can't? It's just, the UK, like, it's like Ireland. Like, it's going to rain all the time. Dana hates that shit. Like, it would be great. I'd love to see it. It's his dream. But you can't do it in June?

Can't do June? Have the tarp over it? Get a bit of fucking weekend. What's talking about? Ubank van was in November. Ubank van was in April. I know, but they are used to doing events like that. used to cover in the arena like they're experts at it and even if it does rain in those

situations they know how to deal with it i i think it's just such a massive undertaking for the ufc when they're so they're moving so quickly all the time yeah like it's like event event event it's like oh we have to build something to cover the octagon and the runway to the to the the cage i just the spear was a big thing the white house i think it doesn't happen you think it will happen ariel again i'm trying to think like i think they want to do big shows and big events, but if history is any indication now. The reason I don't think the Spains and the South Africans and all these happen is because of what Pizzi said. They have to keep that momentum. They can't, they can't take a second

to plan for these other things because they are moving too fast. They have to keep the train on the tracks. And if they keep the train on the tracks, they make a ton of money. We talked about how we don't think it was a particularly good year. Profits-wise, it was a hell of a year for the UFC. No, no. So this is the game they play now. They don't care about the product. And they tell it to us every week by putting on these dog shit apex cards and nobody says anything about it and they just keep the momentum going. And so it was a horrible year for MMA. I don't think there were many big fights at all. I thought most of the stars were on the sidelines and they made the most money they're ever going to make until next year when they're going to make

the most money they're ever going to make. So they don't have time to sit and plan and go, are we going to do a stadium show? They just got to keep that train going. And if the train stays on the tracks, they make the most money they've ever made. all right guys let's talk about some news and notes um as we uh perhaps round third here okay michael morales let's talk about michael morales last night tweet put into the group chat from tapology let's go through this in chronological order not reverse chronological it's going chronological order uh michael morales who was 19 and no at last check and who is still 19.0. There is a tweet put out by Tapology stating update on the Tapology record for

Walterweight phenom Michael Morales. While Morales had been listed up to this point as undefeated as a professional, we have added one additional professional win and one additional professional loss from the start of his career. And so I read this and I'm like, yeah, this is significant. You know, is it, is it going to change the course of his career? No, but, you know, say, saying you're 19 and 0 and saying you're 19 and 1 are two very different things. There's a bit of a different feel there. And so it's like, holy crap, what's this fight? Right?

What's this big fight? Let's go through the rest of the tweets. I'll follow you guys here. Can I ask one thing before we move on to it? Is it worth the discussion of what tapology is or is that too dumb? Go ahead. Tell them. Tell them.

Just from the perspective that I think it's important to note that like there isn't like an official record book of these things, right? We're kind of relying on a lot of this stuff. Tapology is a site that does a fantastic job of keeping track of all the MMA records, making sure that the wins, the losses, everything is recorded. It's such an extensive database.

They do a great job. There's also Sherdog, who is the longer legacy one that I used to always go to and has an extensive history of doing this, and they have great people behind the scenes at both places who pour over footage and get organizations to send them tape

and send them documentation of all that stuff. So there's these different databases, but it's important to note that there isn't like a unified thing that is the official record. So Tapology is one of them that does this. I will also add that they are the newer kid on the block. As you said, Sherdog was the mainstay. The UG back in the day, MMA.TV, was another great resource. But yes, you know, boxing has box wreck.

But honestly, for me, in 2026, I go to Tapology for all my boxing and MMA. Same. They've done a great job with boxing as well. I like the way the website feels, looks, the way you can navigate through things, the little, like, you know, new features that they've added. So when I read this, I was like, oh, wow, this is significant. There was a gentleman who works for Sherdog, I believe his name is Jay Petrie, who waited on this. And he put out a tweet regarding this news. Sherdog FightFinder will not be changing the professional record of UFC Fire.

fighter Michael Morales, maybe it's Petri, sorry, his last name. We reviewed the Ultima Palaya reality series two years ago and determined that these tape delayed matches would not be marked as pro. More on this tomorrow from Sherdog.com. So this is Sherdog's Fightfinder representative. So the event, the fight, was a reality type show from back in the day. And we do have some of the footage. And you may recall that the ultimate fighter is viewed as exhibition.

Wins and Losses on the Ultimate Fighter is viewed as exhibition, and apparently this is the same thing. You see it's in a sort of like warehouse type of situation, and you see Michael Morales is involved, and you see Michael Morales is about to lose this fight. And so some way, somehow, this is an old fight, some way somehow, and there's the victory, and it's a little bit shocking considering how good he looks. By the way, his physique is completely different from this. Do we know how long ago this fight was? He was a kid there. Do we know how long ago this fight was? When they put it in his record, did they state when this fight was from?

Well, here's more information from Cappology. We were tipped off to and found extensive footage of an Ecuadorian league called Ultima Pellia, which had at least three seasons of a reality style show, excuse me, with fighters in a tournament, Morales competed in the second season in 2017. There you have it. Morales was 17 at the time of the qualification fight and 18 at the time. the time of his quarterfinal fight a loss. The rules and structure of the fights meet our criteria of professional MMA. Many of the competitors were established fighters, including

Ricardo Centeno, who beat him. While the ultimate fighter reality show in the U.S. is still classified as exhibition status, we don't grant the same exhibition status to other reality competitions around the world. Tough has only been exempted because of the U.S. Athletic Commission's designation it was given. Okay. So everyone was going crazy over this. And Michael Morales actually weighed in himself. I'll punch injustice right in the face. F-U tapology.

Laughing emoji and a middle finger. Then all of a sudden, am I missing a step here? Am I missing a step between that and Tapology's update today, guys? No, there were some other media people weighing in on it, but those are the official. Okay, so let me complete the picture. This morning, Tapology. post this update on the Ultima Pellia. By the way, am I pronouncing that correctly, Andy? You had to write the first time. Ultima Pellaya. Oh, well, yeah. Why did I screwed up?

Ultima Pellaya. League in Ecuador and its impact on Michael Morales's MMA record, we will reverse and classify these as exhibition. We look forward to many colorful replies on social media about how stupid we are. Thank you in advance, but above all, we want to be fair and get this correct. More info. We added hundreds of fights daily to tapology and try to evaluate them consistently. This is difficult to do given the different kinds of fights and circumstances that are sent our way. One category of fight that we have been getting far more strict about is, quote, exhibition fights. For the last several years, we have been very restrictive about allowing fighters or leagues to claim exhibition status. It has become a loophole

for keeping legitimate fights out of our records. It allows fighters to compete and otherwise professional bouts without it counting. It had become increasingly difficult to explain why one scenario could count as exhibition, but another couldn't, and in almost all scenarios, we felt the fights were all hard-fought, legitimate MMA contests.

As a result, new events being sent to us, even if a reality show format are generally not exempt from counting on tapology, win-loss record. This is the standard we applied to reviewing the, well, now they called it ultimate, Pelea events that we found footage of this week. What's not fair and not consistent

is that we are applying a roughly 2023 forward framework to a 2017 event. If this event had been reported to us in 2017, we would have certainly accepted it as a exhibition at the time. This is the crux of how we agree we were incorrect when we classified these yesterday. We apologize for the shitstorm. We appreciate all the interesting feedback we received.

Yes, some of the feedback was fairly dumb, but some of it contained good and helpful arguments. I don't love that type of stuff there, but all right, fine, trying to be a little tongue-in-cheek. Was there anything else? Okay, so I'll just give you quickly my thoughts. I know New York, Rick, you're very passionate about this, so I will pass the baton to you in a mere second. Number one, when I saw this, I was like, wow, this is significant because, A, he's undefeated, and I think it's a part of his aura, it's a part of his brand right now, and so that's a very significant thing.

you see his reaction and you're like oh wow I actually reached out to someone close to him and what they said to me was I feel like someone

wanted to play around with Morales and was uploading this to Tapology this fight happened so long ago as an exhibition match it shouldn't be on the record

but it is what it is the problem is fixed now and the record is intact so perhaps it was someone trying to go after Morales someone didn't like him who knows I did feel

look Tapology I think has I think they're the best, and I think they have a responsibility to get things right. In the end, I think they got it right. It seemed like maybe they jumped the gun a little bit, and when you're playing with people's lives and records, you are going to feel that wrath. So they're joking about it a little bit, but, you know, Michael Morales has every right to be upset when he's probably saying to himself, this is a reality show, just like the UFC's reality show, why are you holding us to a different standard? Now, I have long thought that the ultimate fighter fights shouldn't be a reality show, because as they did, described there if it's fights happening between professionals like just go back to tough one go back to

tough five tough five had actual you know former ufc fighters later down the line we had guys uh you know who are champions another organization later down the line we had you know the carlos sparses of the world the number one ranked strawweight in the world fighters coming over from invicta these are professional fighters and and these fights are professional fights they should not be exhibitions now the way the ufc has gone around it is a they're pre-taped and be they're two-round fights, not three-round fights. So all right, fine. Then I think that criteria should be applied to all these other reality shows. Now, I don't know if Ultima Pilea is doing two or three-round fights, but if it's a pre-taped show and who knows what's going on, if it's not live,

I kind of feel like to make things easier for everyone, you should have it as an exhibition, I guess. Here's where it gets tricky and why I don't envy the tapologies and the UGs and the sherdugs of the world, you're playing with people's careers here. And I don't doubt for a second that there are people who are going to try to argue this was exhibition, this wasn't, so that their record is as clean as possible, because you know that matchmakers and promoters are going on to these websites to verify what a potential sign-e or prospect is listed as. So I will bet you all the money in the world that these types of headaches are happening behind the scenes, almost on a daily basis, this one just happened to play out in front of us. I think it was a lesson learned for them.

I think they jumped the gun. And kudos to them, less than 24 hours later, they rectified it. They didn't die on the hill. They didn't say, no, we put this out, we're getting shit, and we're going to fight it. No, they said, you know what? We're going to go back. We're going to rectify it. Sorry, no harm, no foul. I give them a lot of respect for that. I hope it's a teaching moment for them. I hope it's a lesson learned because you are going to get that crap, especially when you are, you know, you're dealing with a very, very famous fighter. But ultimately, like my my thesis is I don't envy these guys who are just sort of independent dudes who don't work for the UFC or any promoter or any sanctioning body or anything like that who you know are

dealing with these records because we know in the UFC and in North America and in most parts of the world it's it's pretty clean but it's it's not very clean in other parts of the world and the sport is growing at a rapid pace and there's fights happening all over the world to where like it gets messy and it gets really you know it gets really political and it probably It's a little sketchy at times, and they've got to decipher what is pro, what is exhibition, what's real, what's not good luck to them. It's not a job that I want. So in the end, it sounds like they got to the right conclusion, a little bit messy along

the way, but I'm happy that they at least rectified it and made the right call. What do you think, Mr. New York, Rick? I think people lose their minds and lose common sense over this stuff. I think this undefeated record thing is a holdover from boxing that makes people act irrationally. And I think that as you very, very astutely laid out, tapology and other record keepers have a very difficult job here in determining what is exhibition, what is professional, and all these things. And for that reason, I almost wish they actually had not reversed their decision from the perspective that it's now opening the door to every single person under the sun. If you have a name as big as Michael Morales does, saying, no, actually this fight was an exhibition. And they're going to have to take a hard line stance or waver on it again.

and we're going to be in the same position over and over and over again. And you're silly if you think that there are not people who are trying to game the system, right? I'm not claiming that Michael Morales is, nor are the people involved in his career or that promotion themselves are, but there are going to be examples of people who do this. And this is another thing that happens in boxing, right? You set up these exhibition fights. They're not truly exhibition fights, but you want to wipe it from the record because that undefeated record is so important. When it comes to the, like, having an O, people lose their minds and common sense goes out the win.

though. I watched Michael Morales get choked to sleep and punched in the head by another armed, unarmed combatant. It doesn't matter to me if it was pro or not pro. I watched it happen. There's video paper. What if it's amateur? Again, I watched it, regardless of if it's amateur or pro, I watched it happen. If his pro record has a one on it or has a zero on it, it doesn't matter to me. I feel no different about Michael Morales as a top contender in the UFC and as somebody who could potentially dethrone the Welterweight champion. This happening in 2017 doesn't change my opinion on Michael Morales one bit, whether he has a one on his record or a zero on his record. The same way John Jones, my eyes work. I can watch the fight between

Matt Happel and John Jones and know who won that fight. We don't have to lose our minds over this artificial Floyd Mayweather. He has the O. Habib has the O. People get too focused on the promotional aspect of it and not what happened in front of our eyes. Michael Morales lost to that guy, whether it's amateur, whether it's pro, whether it was exhibition, whether it was not, and whatever the best way to record keep that and however to reflect that is, I leave that to topology to decide, but I don't think we need to be as protective of this thing as if it is some holy grail. Like Michael Morales' career has now advanced many, many degrees beyond whatever happened in 2017. That guy is an... I watched Islam

Makachev get knocked out by Adriano Martins in the UFC. Would anybody go? oh man well like no who cares the his his career is so far beyond that the things he has achieved are so far beyond that to focus in on this like singular oh thing i think makes people get irrationally silly uh when it comes to all this shit and so i i think that topology should take a hardline stance on some of this stuff and just go we're going to count everything from tough and everything from other other every other reality show or not and just take that direction and And the case-by-case thing is not going to serve them well, especially, like, putting it out there, as you said, and then reversing it, I think that that does some damage to the system. I think it showed some maturity, but I actually, I disagree with a few things that you said.

Number one, if they decide, like, hey, we're going to just count everything now, right? We're going to count everything. It's easier. It's cleaner this way. You got knocked down in a fight. That's a loss on your record. Now all of a sudden, you have to think of it from like a business standpoint. Now, all of a sudden, their records are going to be inconsistent with the U.S.

And that's going to be a problem. They want to be in line with the UFC. They have to be in line with UFC if they are to be considered the gold standard when it comes to this stuff. So you don't want to necessarily reverse that because now of a sudden some guy is going to be, you know, 22 and 1 in the UFC and they'll have them as 18 and 3 and then it's a little bit weird. So, so that's number one. Number two, I think it's easy for you and I to say or anyone, and I don't agree with this, but it's easy for you to say or anyone out there to be like, you know, stop losing your head over this. It's not that big of a deal when it's someone's career and it's someone's body of work. And they fight and scratch and claw and put everything on the line to try to win as many

fights and be undefeated. Who are we to say that you're making too big of a deal out of it? And so Michael Morales is sitting there on a January in 2026 and being like, yo, a fight that I lost nine years ago that I was told was an exhibition. Now you're trying to say that I'm no longer undefeated. Yeah, fuck you guys. So I don't I don't begrudge him. Now I don't know the messages that they received. I don't know what kind of threats they received. Who the hell knows? But I can understand why at least Michael and his team and family would be like, no way. This happened nine years ago. Why aren't you counting those other exhibition fights as pro? And ultimately, like, they have to, they have to get a right. And so if they were wrong, then kudos to them for getting

a right. Them taking some sort of hardline stance to me is just silly. And they would be viewed as not the gold standard. To me, they are the gold standard because they get a right. they got it right the first time or got to write the second time, they ended up getting it right. And I think that's most important. Why is that most important? That's what I would ask you. Because I think they deemed that all these other types of fights are exhibitions around the world. I don't think this is the only exhibition and I don't

like a reality show and I don't think the ultimate fighter. There's all these shows around the world that are reality shows and I think the standard in MMA, whether that's right or wrong is a whole other discussion. But the standard in M.A. because of the the gold standard reality show, which is the ultimate federal, which was first, has been these are exhibition fights.

They say that's been the standard. In their follow-ups, as a result, new events being sent to us, even if a reality show format are generally not exempt from counting on tapology win-loss record. This is the standard we applied. Yeah. So this is the standard. There has to be a standard. That's my point. It can't be a case by case. This show falls under the standard, which is these are exhibitions. And so they had to stick with that. They messed up yesterday, and they fixed it today. But I don't. I don't think it's, I don't think it's fair to say that, you know, people are losing.

Here's the other thing, by the way, here's the other thing. I do think a big part of Habib's aura, a big part of his legacy, is that he is undefeated. I think the reason why people put Habib up on this pedestal is because he is undefeited. There's no tape of Habib getting choked out and slap silly in a triangle. That's the point. But I'm saying the reason why some people don't put Islam up there with Habib, you say, I don't care if, like, ultimately, I see what I see now, right? I see what I see now. I think that that does count.

Like if you can retire undefeated, Terrence Crawford retired and defeated. That's a huge thing. Floyd retired undefeated. That's a huge thing. Khabi retired undefeated. That's a huge thing. Islam will never retire undefeated.

I agree. That's the importance of it. That's why I think it's so important that if you have videotape of somebody losing, we acknowledge it. But if it's an amateur fight, it doesn't get acknowledged. People lose on the amateur scene

and then go undefeated in the pro scene and they are viewed as undefeated fighters. MMA amateur system is different. I'm just saying if you see someone get knocked out, but it's an amateur fight, that doesn't affect their pro career. So to me, exhibition is amateur, is the way you can view amateur, right? This happened in some sort of set of someone's career, but then when they are pro, at the end of the day, it's these pro fights that happen, and if you're undefeated, you're undefeated. My problem is with the murkiness of it, right? Is an amateur fight, okay, we have headgear and we're fighting for one, three-minute rounds?

They're saying this was exhibition. They're saying this is exhibition, and the guy that he was fighting was a professional fighter. He already had four fights in a professional career. Okay. So which side of the fence are you on here? Oh, man. On the argument of does undefeated matter and Michael Morales having a right to be upset? Well, first of all, how do you feel about the way this has all played out?

Oh, gosh. I don't know. I am in agreement with Tapology's most recent tweets of what isn't fair is going with a 2023 set of standards and going back to this 2017 fight and changing it, I think at this point, if it's not on his record, then it's not on his record. You just have to move forward with the fact that he's 19 and 0. You can't have this, oh, Michael Morales is 20 and 1 on Tapology,

and he's 19 and 0 on Sherdog, and he's 16 and 0 on the UFC's official record. You can't have all these difference. You need, we need to have a standard for it across, and I believe that Michael Morales is 19 and 0. I think that you have to just count this as an exhibition falling under this standard of the Ultimate Fighter rules. There will be other fights coming up that people lose on reality shows that will count on their records.

On Tapology. I don't understand this 2023 business. What is that? They're saying... Topology's claiming that now reality shows count on your record. Yes. But the Ultimate Fighter does or doesn't? That has its own exception. That's what I'm saying.

I don't agree with that. That's my point. It's fucking muddy. And this is an example of furthering that. That part I don't agree with. I don't agree with that. It has to be one or the other. I agree with you.

You can't play God. with people's careers. So I said there has to be a standard rule and you said you disagreed with that. There has to be one rule and you said you disagreed with that part. There has to be one determination. Do reality shows count or not?

And it has to be applied universally. Is that what you're talking about, Rick? Yes, it has to apply universally. Yeah, and I think that, and that's the conclusion that they came to. It's not. They're going to include other fights. They're saying right now if this happened,

if Michael Morales was in his second date of his career, it would count as that. When was the last ultimate fighter? Like the Connor Chandler series. Those were exhibitions, I believe. UFC has that. Oh, so they get the one exception? Yeah.

That's stupid. That's stupid. That's stupid. That's stupid. That's stupid. What I don't agree with is that you can't like... Retroactively do it. A, but also I really do believe that the ones, you know, that second column matter.

They absolutely matter to the casual plan. There is no doubt. And it matters to the person. Larry, let me clarify on my point. My point isn't that it doesn't matter. It very much matters. People are obsessed with it to a degree that is not commensurate with what is happening in the world. Michael Morales retroactively getting that loss to me is not significant in the scope of Michael Morales is right now as good as he was yesterday, right?

Tapology making that decision does not change how good Michael Morales is from 24 hours previous. hours previous, Michael Morales was just every bit as good as he is now in the future. He might be the future champion of the UFC. It might have been his Adriano Martinez. Who knows who cares? Ultimately, yes, the O matters, but you're talking about Habib, you're talking about these others. There's not videotape of Habib getting this done to him. That's my point. The O's should, there has to be some insignificance to it. There has to be a reason that we're all talking about this. I've watched Islam Makachev lose. I've now watched Michael Morales lose. I wasn't aware of this fight.

I've watched him lose. It happened. I've seen it. So if we're going, Michael Morales is undefeated on the pro record. Does this make you feel any different about Michael Marales? Zero. I feel just as good about Michael Morales as I did 24 hours ago.

I feel he's freaking fantastic. Might be the best opportunity to beat him on the United. Do you consider him undefeated? No. I watched him lose. There's videotape. I mean, he is right. There is videotape of Michael Morales losing.

If you ask me a question like that. If you see a fighter lose on the ambivalierism, scene. You don't consider them undefeated anymore? It depends. Are we talking boxing or MMA? There's different things. And this is why I'm saying, are they wearing shin guards? And is it like... No, like those amateur fights, like the CFFC ones.

And I think that reality show are fights between pro fighters where they agreed that they're going to fight and live with the results. So I don't give an exception to that. I don't... Again, I'm not the one making the record book, so it's easy, as you said, it's easy for me to say this, right? And I'm not Michael Morales or his team.

But I think tapology and these other, you know, insuredog and the UFC themselves have very difficult jobs in having to navigate this because there are going to be people that try to manipulate the system like this, that go, no, no, that was an amateur fight. That was, that was this, that was that. And who knows, their word may be law. There may not be enough video and all these things. Why did they pick 2023? I think that's just because when they may be like outlined the rules. That part makes no sense to me. I don't know.

The 2023, like, delineation makes no sense. And the fact that they are saying that that Tough is still exhibition, but these other ones aren't. If anything, I would reverse it. I would say, tough would be the real ones. If you really want to say that, because these are with, like, the top-level fighters and some reality show in Ecuador isn't. While the ultimate fighter reality show in the U.S. is still classified as exhibition status, we don't grant the same exhibition status to other reality competitions. Why not? Tough has only been exempted because of the U.S. Athletic Commission.

I don't know. It's too nice. By the way, some of these other places don't have athletic. They have no commissions. Yeah. But that's further credence to why they are dealing with a very, like, difficult thing because they don't have these commissions. There's no doubt, Rick.

There's no doubt that it's a difficult thing. But this is, they've been stabbed with their own sword, essentially. They brought this. Tapology. Topology. They brought it out in public, like, this is what's going on. And then they've had to retract it. I don't think they should have reversed it if I'm being honest.

What do you think about it? But that's what I'm saying. like it's it's it's it's it's it's made a song and dance about this only to retract it or i think it's a bad look for typology from being honest so what do you think they're saying oh come come and come and um you know come and say shit about yeah exactly they will yeah you you've made a song and dance and now you've had to pull it back and it's a storm in a teacup it's a storm in a teacup it means nothing now essentially it's a big hoopla about absolutely fucking nothing now by the way you made a great point ariel sorry ptie go ahead uh ariel you made a great

point about like the records matching and reflecting somebody correct me if they if I'm misremembering this but I feel like there was a point where they started adding the tough victories into UFC records and some weird shit got a little weird yeah I remember I don't remember exactly what happened was it

the live was it the tough live oh yeah there was something happening where like the UFC records were different the exhibition was the exhibition was the fact that they were being played on a tape delay I think that was the original and then it went tough live I think they start adding them to record for that season. I thought it extended

even beyond that, but I don't know. I'm not as like, again, this world doesn't really consume my thoughts, which is why I'm able to imagine having this job and it's like, oh yeah, here's a fight. Everyone's trying to be a reason. No, because there's literally no right answer. Yeah. Yeah, everyone's agreeing with each other, we're just coming out from different angles. But I think the Bible here is

for topology. Am I off base though? And I feel the, like, we're not far off as Pizzi's saying between myself and you, Ariel. But like, I do think this obsession with the undefeated thing is a very boxing thing. For us, right? No, for us I think undefeated is important.

People love it. Of course it is. For branding, for everything, for selling. Not to us, right? Like, we, inevitably we know. Does that work anymore? Yes. It does. It does. John Jones has been fighting to get that one back because he wants to be known as undefeited. But he's the best example of what I'm saying. His record

doesn't have the O. His record does not have the O. Yes. He still wants it back. We still think he's great, but I can't say he's undefeated. I can't say, I can say, I view, I mean, technically he's not. It's an inaccurate thing. We all. Then Michael Morales is not undefeated. No, no, no.

I'm saying, if you look at his record, there's a freaking one there. Now, right, wrong. There's a bunch of wrong calls that are made all the time. How you feel about it, though, is different than what that record says. How you feel about it. I don't think Joseph Parker lost to Fabio Ward. No, you know. Okay.

I don't think fucking, what's his name, lost to Patty Pimble. You know, like, but listen, if I'm telling you about a prospect, you've never seen fight, Rick. Yeah, yeah. And I'm like, this fellow's 15 and 0, he's done, he's K-O and everybody, he's K-O-12, it's different to me being like, yeah, this guy's 15-1. It just is. Is there an easily accessible videotape of him getting triangle choked and punched in a triangle? Because if so, I'd be like, damn, that 15-0 is looking kind of shady at the moment. The people that this matter to are not going to find the triangle choke video.

Exactly, exactly. You're sitting on the couch I'd look for that and I'd see it. Yeah, you, you also don't care about the O. The kid that you're sitting on the couch with who's casually watching the pay-per-view on a Saturday night having a couple beers is going to be like, 19-0, and that's what he did in his last fight?

This guy's unstoppable. I love this guy. I can't wait to watch him fight. You can still say all those things about him. Except he's 19-1. Right, you got triangle choked back in Ecuador in 2017. He's like, I don't give a fuck about this guy. His body is living.

He also just put Sean Brady in the hospital. Also, we have a new, we have a new man sitting in the bar being like, that one time. One time, my triangle choke is that. Shout out to Ricardo Settano, baby. Terrence Crawford. Terrence Crawford lost over 10 times in the amateurs. Great. What a loser.

That's my point, though. This is exhibition, though. Parents Crawford, I used to think he was good. You think different about Terrence Crawford? No, but the point is, you don't, we haven't crossed those fights over. Boxing's amateur is obviously a little more very clearly outlined, right? we're talking even Olympic boxing right you're doing amateur fighting and that's not in your professional career

there's a I'm just saying if you're signing up for a fight that's exhibition or amateur it shouldn't count on your pro resume I guess where's the contracts on these so he was told yeah but if he was told like hey I'm doing this as a 17 year old do we know that it was 18 when we know we don't know we don't know anything I didn't even heard of this thing and that's tapology's 18 when he lost but Do we know that?

But what if we, what if that is a real thing? We don't know the opposite either. I don't. Exactly. So if you're going to just do a, just do a hard fucking fast rule. I agree with that.

Reality shows our exhibition and you'll save yourself a headache, tapology. When you're starting in 2023? No, starting. You can just imagine the fuckery that's happening out of like. And I love topology. Again, love it. Use it every single day.

I love it. There's not a day where I'm not in topology. Like, it's just, this situation comes off. You can just see though where like, consider this right think about these promotions where the

stars getting to the UFC and being successful is more important post these things happening right as an example right this promotion probably loves the idea that Michael Morales was a star that fought for us and now he's fighting in this promotion he's a future UFC champion

oh my god he's so fantastic at the time that maybe wasn't a sentiment right you could understand why there'd be motivation on the side of the promotion or others to submit video tape and be like, no, no, actually, you know what, that was an exhibition. And now you're a tapology or you're sure dog or you're somebody else and you're having to deal with some guy in Romania who's telling you it was actually an exhibition, some guy in Turkey who's telling you this, some guy in South America, in South American country, X, Y, Z that's

telling you this. And it just becomes too difficult to kind of police that and have to understand was that pro, was that exhibition? These contracts probably don't even exist. You probably get managers writing in and be like, you MF or you're trying to ruin my guys. He's trying to get signed by this thing and you had this listed. That wasn't a real fight. That's shit. Oh, it's an awful job. I don't know why. Above all else, let me reiterate. I think Michael Morales is the

best chance at beating Islam Makachev in the Walter Reed Division. I think he's fucking incredible. I think he's... Yeah, probably at this point. Like, I need to see Shafka come back. Dude's a savage, man. I feel no different about him today than I did yesterday in saying that I do think there's tape. I seen it.

It exists. I don't know. See, when you say that, though, now I don't know what you're stances. Why? Doesn't really look like Michael Morales to me. I'm just saying It's true. Why can't two things be true? I watched him lose and I think he's fucking amazing now. Sure. Sure it's him? I watched, I just said it. I watched Islam

Makhutchev get slept. I think he's That looked like Islam though. Can you not agree that if you can retire 27 and 0 or 50? It's fantastic. It's great. There's a lot of money to be made with that all. It's so it's such a it's such a like

combat sports thing. I mean, that's what we do. That's what we do. We're in the combat sports world. Of course, but by the way, it's the only... Everybody loses. It's not boxing. People lose.

People care. No, this is a thing that... Habibna Magamatov. What is the number one thing when people debate Michael Jordan and LeBron James? What is the number one thing that they say? Jordan never lost in the final. Let's not get into this because I think that's stupid as shit too.

Listen to what I'm saying. This is what they say. I'm not asking your opinion on it. The number one thing that people point to is, but he never lost in this and that and that. This guy never lost in the Super Bowl. Tom Brady, whatever. You always point, if there's an O somewhere,

you always go to that first. It's not necessarily just a combat sports thing. Obviously in combat sports, I'm sure G.C. could tell us some dude who's undefeated at French Open or the Aussie Open or something. The Miami Dolphins pop a bottle of champagne every single year because they're the only NFL team to ever have an O. Yes.

It's not, they won the Super Bowl, just like all the other teams after them, but they popped that thing because of the O. Let me ask you an important question, though. Are the Miami Dolphins who never lost the best team in the NFL or have they, were they ever one of the best? I don't know if it's about best, but it's about a distinction that they can now hold on to and are talked about

forever. Arsenal, the only team to go undefeated in the Premier League season, they're called the Invincibles. The dolphins are not the best NFL team ever, but they still get to celebrate every year. Everyone still talks about them because they were undefeated. I don't think Habib Nirmagamatov is the goat, but people will always put them in that conversation because of the

L. Couldn't agree more. I agree. If Habib has... Undefeated record doesn't matter to me. If Habib has that Davy Ramos lost on his record if he has it, then no one talks about him in the same way. They don't. Thousand percent. I know, because he didn't do enough. He didn't do enough. But they do talk about him in the same way now.

I mean, he's out there hobnobbing with Erling Holland. You know? Is he hobnobbing with Hurling Erling Holland if he has the lost of Romo? No, he doesn't. He ain't doing that. By the way, do you think Erling knew who he was? 100%. You think? Dude, he's famous of shit.

He has like 40 million followers on it. Two, three Dagestan. Two three years. Did he say he's going to send his kids to Dagestan two to three years, Erling Holland? I think I saw he said that. He did say that, yeah. In any event, I do think it's- It's crazy.

Early Holland's big on like the health crazes, you know? Is he? He's getting raw milk and whatnot. He's dealing that like... He also looks gigantic compared to him, right? 23. Big boy. Look at the size difference.

No, I know Chabeeb is a big soccer fan. Like Habib's outfit. I don't remember what really can't do it to was out of that. Very Rick-esque there. Holland, 6.5. Oh, shit. What's Habib, man? 6-1, he looks good.

No, I don't think he's... It's a down angle. You know, if they were shooting that up angle, or Holland's... 6-5-10, 5-10, Habib. One of the best videos, and what I love so much about it isn't the ball knowledge, Pete. You know the one where he's talking to Minnell Cap

and he's going through all the Champions League winners? You know that one? Oh, yes. You know that video in the PI? Yeah, yeah. But the way he's counting, is like very sort of Middle Eastern, Eastern European. Like he goes like 2017, da-da-da-da-da-da.

You know, like he does it like this as opposed and then he goes, do you know the video I'm talking about? Yeah, yeah, absolutely. He goes through all the Champions League's winners from each year. But the way he does it on his fingers is very like old man from the Middle East. PTC has no idea what you're talking about. No, I do.

I don't know the way I always present you guys like, I don't fuck. You know what I'm time of. Oh, yeah, I know. I was doing Laura to Rings, face again, was I? Yeah, yeah. Lord of the ring's face. You know the one I'm talking about, right guys? I do fucking know. It did. At the PI, where he's listing off the UFC champions.

Pull this one up real quick. My nail, my nail is still just crushed. Why? I'm going to have to pop it off. Your nail. He's a good caller, man. Do you ever see he playing football? He's fucking class. Is he? Really good. He's savage, man. You ever seen Islam on the wrestleball court? Yeah, I think I'd smoke all of them, to be honest.

What? I've never played a bit. That feels like chess boxing. You better be really good at one or the other, you know? Is chest box and wanking? Huh? Just what? How did we get there?

A bit of the blue, pizza? Everything okay. Is everything okay? Bit of the blue? Hot under the color. No, chess boxing is chess and boxing. You alternate. Do you get a rodent king grounds of chess and boxing?

No, no, I'm good. They call wank and belly boxing in Ireland sometimes, you know what I'm? Okay. That is so. Oh. Is it amateur or pro? Undefeated. I missed that whole thing.

That's just for us. It'll take a while to get that video. It'll be finally tape the bellybox. Okay. Well, we'll come back to it. Are you counting? Yeah, I want the video. Yeah, man, that's going to take a minute.

Rogan's show, he pulls it up right away. There we go with this again. Jamie, pull it up real quick. They get to make a nice jump cut from him saying that to win Jamie. Oh, I like that, the shade. Frankie, any super chats? Yes. All right.

Ariel, not just happy new year. You've been very quiet today. I wonder why. Maybe every time I stick my neck out, it just gets loft off. Are you going to help me with my phone later? No, that ship has done sailed. It's gone. You promised you would help me.

Get an Android. All right, all right. Ariel, not just happy New Year, but happy World Cup year as well. North America will be so hyped. We'd love to see Jesse Marsh as a guest soon. Okay, I'm going to set the line, Happy New Year to you as well. I'm setting the line at one, and this is for the collective us. World Cup games, we attend.

One. Who's taking the over, who's taking the under? Do you think any of us go to, you think we end up going? I will be at a World Cup game. You think so? No question. Come hell or high water? They fucked the tickets. They fucked it.

I know. Those prices are going to come down as it gets a little. I think they're going to just like skyrocket down. The whole mood, man. It's not what it's about. It's fucking everyone's, they can rectify it. They can rectify it. So, Mom Donnie's going to get 10% that's one of the nosebleeds is bullshit.

For sure. For sure. He's going to get a pool of tickets for. My mayor is capping the price. We'll be all be able to afford it. Yeah. No doubt. No doubt.

He has full control over that. Yeah, it's like a hundred tickets or some shit. Pizzi. If Ireland makes it, you coming over. I think all the tickets are gone. Oh, they're not. There's always They're going to plummet, bro.

By the way, no one's buying these tickets. They're probably all in. Loads people are, like, boying them all already. Like, we haven't been qualified yet. Bro, I'm going to go to Jordan versus Algeria in like San Francisco. Okay, so you're going, you're going, come hell or high water. Heller high water. I'd love to go to one in New York, San Francisco and Atlanta.

Why San Francisco, by the way? Oh, my brother lives out there. Oh, okay. If Ireland qualify, it's going to be, we're going to be in Mexico and Canada, I believe. Why is that? Sorry, Mexico, two games. in Mexico, one game in Atlanta, I believe. Oh, beach.

You can come stay with the folks. I'm in there. Let's do it. Wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow. I would like to go as well. The opening weekend, there's a game in Toronto, there's a game in New Jersey, there's a game in Philly, back-to-back days. That was my initial dream, and it could be Canada versus Italy opening. Could be Canada versus Wales, the Brennan Johnson Cup, but I don't know.

I would like to go. I would like to go to at least one. By the way, of the group, how many of us have? actually been to a World Cup match before you have never been to a woman just you Nigeria v let me tell you guys about 1990s like Syracuse all over again oh look at this stadium Argentina versus Nigeria was this a special quarterfinal match sure was it extra special because it ended up being Diego Maritona's last match ever absolutely he's got Popper doing cocaine in the game mid game mid game taking off the pitch unbelievable

literally they just saw him celebrating he's out of his face yeah so he's like you back now a time it was. 1994, Foxborough Stadium. All right. Anyway, what was the question? Oh, yeah. He said, happy World Cup year. It's going to be great. And Jesse Marshall on the show would be great. Gaffer for Canada. Love it. I feel like we're in a good

spot. Alfonso Davies coming back. By the way, this really has nothing to do with anything. But I was listening to an interview with Rick Cordella, the president of NBC Sports. NBC has, just talking about the year to come and in sports, NBC has one of the most

amazing months coming up in February, they are the home of the Super Bowl, World Cup, excuse me, Super Bowl, Olympics at the same time as the Super Bowl, because the Olympics start on that Friday, Super Bowl is on that Sunday, so Olympics start on the 6th, Super Bowl is on the 8th, and then right after that in the midst of the Olympics, NBA All-Star Game. They have all three of those events in the same 28-day span. That might be like the greatest month ever for a network. Olympics Super Bowl

Probably go Super Bowl Well you'll get more views Olympics or Super Bowl Collectively Is it possible That the Super Bowl Could get more

Collective views In the Olympics No right No not across the two weeks No chance No chance So So peak way higher

But Right Add revenue from those Like commercials I think I just read That they already Sold out It's at 10 million

For some of these Super Bowl commercials And saying Bonus is gonna be Nice Over at Peacock NBC universe.

Yep, yep, yep. I read Torrico's going to, Mike Tarrico, the play by play guy, is going to take a jet from Santa Clara Super Bowl to Milan to call the Super Bowl in like the biggest

you know Olympic games. It's just crazy. Love it, love it. We do have the aforementioned Habib video. Take a look at the way in which he starts counting like this.

This is how like my grandfather would count. Take a look, take a look, take a look, PC. You know what I'm talking about. Take a look. I do know what you're talking. What you know about talking? What?

Okay, for example. 2005, who in Championship? Championship. Liverpool. No, no, no, let's listen. Listen, listen. You were thumb first. Now, 2007.

Now he starts counting with the thumb and the fingers. Manchester. 2009, Barcelona. 2010, Inter. 2011, Barcelona. 2012. I'm just trying to say after him was a year. Oh, yeah.

Oh, yeah. 2014. Yeah. 2015 Barcelona, 16, 17, 18, Reale, 19, Liverpool, 20, Byron. What you know? Now. Oh, now he goes for the Balon d'Or. Wait, no, wait, wait.

Go, Pete, go, go. 1995, George Weyer, 96, Samir, 97. No, no, no, no, but this is the result, coach. This is the result, coach. No, this is the result. Please listen. Yeah. 1997, Ronaldo.

No, please listen, it's okay. No, no, no, no, 1998, Zidane. 99, Rivaldo, 2000. This is pretty damn impressive. 2001, Michael Owen, 2002, Ronaldo, 2003, Pavel Nevin, 2004. Sheppchenko, listen, it's okay. It's not, no, no.

2005, Ronaldino, 2006, Canaver. 2007. No, it's true. It's a real. Caca. No, no, caca. After that, Mr. Arnold, Mr. Arnold. It's really damn impressive. It's incredible. I pride myself on knowing stuff like that, like NBA champ, but like to know the MVP.

Oh, he knew that shit when I was like eighth. Yeah. Like, the fact that he's a grown adult and he knows all that shit is crazy. Like, it's absolutely insane. What else, Frankie? What else? This one from Mercy in Motion Book. I'm going to need you guys to lay off Frank. Oh.

Can't we all just get along? Shut up Mercy in Motion. Here's the gentleman who sent us like the, little snacks and thing. Oh, shout out to Mercy in Motion. Sent us like the... Yeah, Mars.

Man. Legend. Frank. Love that stuff. You know, I was telling my wife earlier, I was saying... Yes, I do. So there's these vitamins.

I look forward to coming to work every day for the banter, for the camarader. How blessed are we that we get to hang out? Pete's I wish you were here every day, truly. But it feels like you're here in spirit. Even though, like, we'll call you at like 1250 and you're, I don't know what you're doing in the doctor's office or something. The belly bucks.

was like, no, I hope you're not. Anyway, love you, appreciate you. Speaking of the wife is Frank, it was your wife's name, Frank, it's unbelievable to me. When I was on vacation, a kid comes up to me, 14 years old. He goes, are you the guy? And I say, well, let me guess. Who interviewed Rampage? Yes.

How is this possible? Why is the Rampage video having this like second, third life? 14, 15 years later, I don't get it. The TikTok kids are finding it. Even my kids' friends are now like, oh, I saw you with Rampage. I'm like, you know that was September of 2011. I don't get it. It's a weird.

Why that one video, though? Of all the videos, why? It's a very good video on TikTok. I know, but it's like, it's been. So when something goes viral, it just like goes everywhere. What else, Frank? I'm so Pizzi, quick up there. Guys, since we are doing predictions, what is everyone's prediction for best pictures

and best actor at the Golden Globes this weekend on Paramount. I have to say, I don't know anything about it. One battle. One battle after the other. That was great. Is Shamaulay's movie going to be in there? Shalameh. Yeah. Shama'amala. What, the ping pong? Already supreme, yeah.

Already? And Timmy win? Went to see it. Is he nominated? Is he allowed to be nominated, or did it come out to... What about, most importantly, Smashing Machine? No. It's not nominated? I don't believe so. Really? The Rock is nominated, though, for Best.

actor and a drama. Okay. I mean, that's huge. Does he have a chance? No. He's very good, isn't it? Wow. Salomey nominated for best actor and a musical or comedy, but the movie wasn't really a musical or a comedy.

Petezy Irish tickets? $230. If they make it. Really? If they make it. In Atlanta. Ptze, you're getting rage baited by the people online who are complaining and you're not actually looking at the facts. Oh, he makes it just so poor. Yeah. In you in Atlanta.

South Africa versus Ireland Chill out, chill out, chill out, everyone's freaking out I wear my DVP shirt It's the World Cup in the greatest country in the world I mean, it's going to be fucking Do you remember Frank came over Jagoff And you were like, you won't believe what Frank did We're going to have to deal with a 10-hour special

On what happens to me if I go to a World Cup game In order than I play in Atlanta Magic City, get ready You'll have to sleep at Magic City Frank, what else? What else? The lastly, lazy bed MMA says Say your prayers and take your vitamins Yes, yes.

I feel like he he's doing a little pun there. It wasn't already. No, no, no. Someone was telling, what, wait, who's losing? Not just, you know it. Oh, it's been tough. It's been tough.

Fucking bornly. Stuff. I got an email. I got something else, but I don't know if I can say the other thing, but I got an email from one of the founders and owners of tapology, Gregory Sacks, who's a great, who's a great, you know, I would say what's the word that I'm looking for? He's a contributor to the sport of MMA, who's always very

honest, open and transparent. He was watching us talk about the tapology drama. He sent me an email and I asked him if I could read it on the air because I thought it was a very, you know, solid email and it was worth sharing with everyone. So he said, watch your conversation. You guys do a really good job. It was pretty balanced set of takes. Yes, tapology basically handled the whole thing badly and was a mess and it's my fault for not stopping it earlier. The exhibition situation is maddening as far as trying to be a record keeper. We are trying to clamp down on it further and further and allow fewer exhibitions. Everyone has a different definition of what exhibition even means. I would like to do away with almost all exhibition statuses, including tough,

but we haven't been willing to go that far just yet. So there you have it. I think a very real response to what is a very, very, very complex situation. I don't envy them because they have, you know, they have been viewed as the, you know, in my opinion, the gold standard now, and now you have to decide what's real, what's not, what's exhibition, what's not mess of a situation. I will say one thing that allows you to kind of keep the gold standard is transparency like that, is saying, hey, we messed up, it's complicated, and here's what we're trying to do, as opposed to running from it

like I don't know the social media voice was a little bit different where it's like you're all going to call that I didn't love that yeah I didn't love that but like to me that sounds like somebody who is not motivated to bring down Michael Morales and instead is motivated to like really try to keep the records properly and I think that's how you remain the gold standard so credit credit to him for for an email like that

um okay just a couple of other bits before we go here what's this Armand Serukian tweet that uh is being sent Okay, a bloody elbow tweet. Watch Patty Pimble get tapped out an annual BJJ tournament weeks before UFC 324 title fight and here's Armin

quote tweeting it saying Is this the trash can that said he can outgraple me? What Armin doesn't know is that that's an exhibition grappling match. Ah, well, he doesn't know. That's an Iron Man they do

every year at Next Generation Liverpool and it's like hours upon hours of matches. So, I mean, Patty won it last year, I believe. So it's like a king of the match situation. Love it. It's like lads knocking each other out constantly. So if you tap someone out, they get off the mat, you have another match, you have another match.

Goes on for hours. So would you happen to say, wait, wait, Petey then, would you say it's a bit of a clickbait title from our friends at Bloody Oval? You know what I mean? Stay out of this, you know what I mean? Absolutely, absolutely. Yes, it absolutely is. It's not fair to Patty. No, he's also like probably on a calorie deficit at the moment.

you know if you're doing rounds upon rounds like that like and and lads going 100% on you and look next generation Liverpool is full of savages on the mats too patty's obviously not going to try and blast double these legs and go 100% with a fight coming up to um so yeah i think it's a bit i think it's a bit severe to be like your typical tournament you know it's it's uh like he wasn't getting ready for a matchup metamorris or something like polaris or something like that bit more still thing no probably not in our hearts this one is metamorous right Yeah, yeah. Hell yeah.

Polaris, though. Shut down, don't forget. Polaris, though. Oh, yeah, I remember that. That was a crazy one back in the day. Oh, it paid for them shits, man. Honestly. They had good stuff.

They were tremendous. That was one of the most fun. Hoyt's Grafey and Bravo's rematch was in. Hell yeah. Oh, my God. He was playing the clarinet and third grade music class. Trump had it, my bad. And then, an interesting thing before we go,

Sean Strickland returning in February. He did an interview recently and talked about taking the fight against Strickus Duplice in Australia and had some interesting, I don't know, descriptions as to dealing with the UFC. Let's take a listen here. I deserve this, but before the Dragus fight, I was fucking arrived with Axel Hodges and I broke my shoulder.

So I was in Columbia against themselves on my shoulder and fucking they hit me up for the fight. And you know, like, the thing with the UFC dog, you don't say no, they're our pimps. Like, you know, you don't say no to the master. You got to say yes. So I was kind of like backed up in a corner taking that fight. So taking this time off, let my body heals been amazing. Like the shoulder

feels fucking great. So, I mean, I do miss fighting and, you know, I miss performing, but it's been nice to be a fat, lazy piece of shit for a while. Okay, so there you have it. Uh, Sean Strickland coming back, shout to John Bernard, who did that interview. And, uh, you know, the description, I'm not sure if they'll love that, but, you know. There's something charming about Sean Strickland sitting at the top level of the UFCPI. Yes, yes. Talking about other than his pimps and and those things shout up to Sean Strick But perhaps

The incident At the tough enough event Back in June Which we happened to stumble upon Remember that Maybe that ended up being Maybe that ended up being a blessing Right?

Because it gave him this time off Now he's got a big fight Did you get clearance on the other No They're saying how much longer are you on the air I'm like I'm about to I'm about to wrap this bad boy up Unless PT has another rant

Yeah let's just stall for a bit Maybe, I don't know, Petey, you want to do like another role-playing thing? Do you want to act like someone else? Like that thing you were doing for the first two hours of the show where you were pretending, do you want to do that? Wait, he's pretending? No, I wasn't, Frank. I'm insulted. BITB back tomorrow, guys. What do we got on the docket, the rundown, the ENPS?

Who's to check? Go ahead, you take a gun. I love the volume of the drops, by the way. The volume of the drops has been phenomenal ever since we called it out. What else, guys? Okay, I'll take it. What's wrong?

Are you all right there, G.C., what's happening? I'm good. We got Zop boys. So loud. I just couldn't hear you after. The drop was just so loud. It just completely changed the whole equilibrium over here. Go ahead, go ahead.

I love that. I love that. We are going to look further into the budding friendship between John Jones and Daniel Cormier. They taped their reality show. Just kind of talk through some of the other rivalries and things like that. We're also going to hand out,

I know, you know, it's a little late in the game, but the boys in the back had to have their own little carve-out for awards. We're going to hand out some very special distinct honors. They're not going to be the same categories as... No crossover categories. Yeah, no crossover with the Nose Awards, which are the preeminent award show in all of sports

and maybe all of entertainment, period. Thank you, thank you. Um, this is the, the backies. And this is the backies. And we'll have, uh, voicemails and the usual. Okay. Are you calling them the backies? Yeah, yeah, the back.

We're thinking we do the backies, the crack does the crackies. And then we can just build a whole body of trophies. No, we already had the crack award. It was won and done. Well don't open out of it. Auburn killed it. Uh, open killed it. Uh, 415 sub BITB.

That's it. Call now. The, uh, the voicemails leave them a voicemail. A voicemail. Crackback on Friday. Yeah, yeah, it is, yeah. Yeah, what's on the docket? Well, a few different things, Ariel.

We're looking into it. It's, you know, this is journalists. You have to react to the moment. We have to, you know, it's a living and breathing thing. So, I mean, it would be silly for me to be like, this is what we're talking about when we're trying to be the most cutting edge show in the world in M. You're right, all right. I've had a lot of people say.

And look, just for the record, I'm not doing any awards. I would never try and dilute your award show, Ariel. There's absolutely no way I would do it. that. Each of their own, each their own lads, you know, whatever you're trying to do. That's very disrespectful in my book for what you want to do. It's fine. It's noted, Pizzi.

Your lips, God's ears. It is, it is, it is, it's good to have everything back. It is good to have the regular schedule back. And with that in mind, I will tell you that it's been a lot of fun doing these shows the last few days. Awards, awards, preview, predictions, all that stuff. But next Monday, or this coming Monday, I should say, we are back, interviews, all that stuff and more. So if you've been longing for them, jonesing for them, they will be back on Monday. If you are one of those who say too many interviews, well, I hope you enjoyed this week, a little bit different

to start the year. But now we really hit the ground running as far as this particular show is concerned. So with that in mind, the next time I'll be sitting in this chair, gentlemen, the Buffalo Bills will hopefully be punching their ticket to the AFC divisional round. And we'll be well on our way to the Super Bowl. If for whatever reason the opposite happens, I will be a very sad man come Monday, but you've seen me in this date before, we've been there before, and we will get through it together. Nevertheless, very, very confident as we say goodbye. And so with that, Frank, any final thoughts? Anything you want to say before we go? No. It is time to say goodbye. I saw a thing here And I wanted to ask a proud Atlantonian G.C.

Trey Young saying that he wants to go to Washington. Are things so bad in Atlanta that he wants to be traded to Washington? One of the worst franchises in all of sports. Enjoy D.C., brother. That's it. Don't let the door hit you on the way out. What else do you want to say? Are you offended?

Are you upset? No, are you... He's gone. You hate him. I don't hate him? He wants the lead for Washington. Who cares? Knowledge.

Go wherever you play. What do you want me to do? Sit here and be offended? No, just be like at that guy. I don't know. He gave us like seven great years. Give us to an Eastern Conference final. Great?

Good. He was very good on the Hawks. One Easter Conference Final. How many playoffs? How many playoffs? I mean, but I'm not the one to try to classify the run just yet. Trey Young wasn't great on the Hawks?

I think it was very good. Great? Very good. 27. What a Bejohn was like that. Bejohn I also would not be upset with. Remember, Atlanta franchises over the last five years are fairly mediocre. Like, we, it's, it's heat bulls hawks every year for this point.

Right, right, retired number? No. No? No. Retray, great. You wouldn't say great gets a retired number? Absolutely not. Legendary gets a flight number.

Win a chip? Win a chip. When a chip, you get a retired. Matt Ryan? Could have been Back on Wednesday, Thursday I should say Say five posts at this, I'm out here I did not have

I did not have